


Family Affairs

by aminal24



Series: Family [2]
Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Human Trafficking, Love is messy, Season/Series 02, follows most plot lines, no pike, some scenes rewritten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 77,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aminal24/pseuds/aminal24
Summary: Jenny thought she would be happy to see him again. It had been months since she last saw him, after all. And the last time he was there, well… things were different now. And sure, in a way, she was happy to see him again. Was she expecting swelling music and angel choirs to start singing when they reunited again? No. But still, something just felt… off. (Follows story arc of season two)
Relationships: Mike Warren/Original Female Character(s), Paul Briggs/Charlie DeMarco
Series: Family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885822
Kudos: 8





	1. Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm like SUUUUUPPPERRRR bored, so I decided to go ahead and make a sequel to Family Ties. :/ Leave a comment or kudos down below!

Jenny cocked her rifle and dashed behind a large boulder. She heard a bunch of bullets hit the rock like a light pitter patter of little feet. Forcing herself to take a deep breath in attempt to calm her heart rate, she looked over at Charlie across the way, who was taking cover behind a tree. Paige retreated behind the rock next to Jenny, slamming her body against it in a huff. “Damn, these assholes are relentless.” She gasped

A smile formed over Jenny’s face as the adrenaline shot through her veins. “Don’t worry. Charlie and I have a plan. Can you cover me?”

“You bet.” She grinned, shooting off another round from behind their perch.

“You about done with your power nap?” Charlie barked at them. “Paige, help me waste these guys.”

Jenny nodded and crawled on her belly. Luckily, the tall grass and her dark camouflage gave her a perfect cover. Behind her, Charlie was firing rounds and yelling at the group to get their attention. Paige darted out from the boulder and ran towards a barrel, drawing their fire towards her. Angry shouts echoed through the air. Above her head, she could see the tip of yellow, her target. The ground beneath her petite body crunched but was buried under the sounds of shouts coming from the enemy and the bullets piercing through the air.

When she got close enough, she sprang into a full sprint. “Get her!” one of the gunmen ordered his men, as she started to dodge bullets left and right. Just as she reached the wooden plank where her target was, she tumbled head over heels into a somersault and reached for the yellow. As she flew through the air, she could hear bullets whizzing past her ears, narrowly missing her. She latched onto the yellow and fell to the ground gracefully. “We win!” She yelled, holding up the yellow flag and waving it around, earning shouts of victory from Paige and Charlie.

Johnny takes off his mask in frustration. “Oh, come on!”

“What the hell, Johnny?” Jakes shoved his roommate back. “You call that shooting?”

“Hey, Zelanski had the best shot.” He spat at the newbie.

Wayne Zelanski took off his mask and threw it to the ground. “She was weaving in and out of my line of sight. What was I supposed to do?” He was the newest addition to Graceland, a DEA agent and nicknamed "Bates". Johnny and Wayne for the most part had a good "bro" thing going on, but at that moment, Johnny wanted nothing more than to strangle him. 

“The girls are now the Paint ball champions of the world!” Jenny continued to dance her victory in the boy's faces.

Charlie came out from behind the tree she was hiding from with the biggest grin on her face. “Looks like you guys are buying us drinks.” She chuckled, giving Jenny a high-five.

“Dammit!” Johnny cursed. “I'm gonna kill you, Bates!”

Paint ball had become a tradition amongst the housemates of Graceland. It was fun way for them to blow off some steam and practice their shooting. Jenny usually never participated, but she found it to be much more enjoyable recently, as it was a great way to let off steam. It had been three months since the whole “Paul Briggs Public Enemy” debacle happened. Things had calmed down quite a bit since then. With Mike still out East, it left an opening for another roommate, thus brought Zelanski to the house. But other than that, things went back to normal pretty quickly. Jenny’s phone beeped and she pulled it out her pocket. “Well, duty calls.” She told the group. “I gotta bounce. But I will be collecting my bounty by the end of the day.” She pointed at Johnny as she started to walk away. Johnny gave her the finger, which only made her laugh manically.

>>>

“Well, well, well,” Jenny entered the interrogation room, with a file in her hand. “Mr. Greg Thompson, looks like you’ve been one naughty boy.” She slid down on to the chair across from the man. The dark-haired man hung his head, not bothering to look up at her, his hands clasped together by handcuffs sitting on the table between them. From the looks of it, he couldn't have been older than 25, his face wrinkle-free. His clothes, however, were anything but. At first glance, he almost looked homeless. “Drug possession, armed robbery, several DUIs, and playing hooky from school so much, you got kicked out four times.” She tossed the file onto the table and sat back in the chair. “Want to read your biography?”

“I didn’t do anything,” He mumbled down to the floor.

She shook her head. “See, we both know that’s not true, Greg. ‘Cause my pals with the badges are telling me that you were out tonight hitting the town, right?”

Greg shrugged slowly. “It was a Friday night.”

“Oh, I know. And you hit up _Benny’s_ , right? Boy, that place really knows how to make a mean martini. You ever had one?” He shook his head. “Well, next time, you should ask for Ricky. He’s one of the bartenders that works there, and he can do this really neat trick with a lime and…”

“Look, lady.” At long last, he lifted his head, his brown beard twitching slightly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at here. But…”

“My name’s not ‘lady’. It’s _Agent_ Briggs.” She corrected. With one hand, she lifted up the badge that hung from her neck.

His face dropped when he saw the FBI symbol. “Jesus, I don’t know anything. I swear.”

“I want to believe you.” Jenny leaned forward and grabbed the file again. “It’s too bad you didn’t want to read your biography. It’s full of twists and turns. Including a surprise cameo.” She took out a picture and slid towards him. The image of pretty, blonde teenage girl smiled back at him, clearly a school picture, with a pale blue background, her hair neatly flattened and make-up simple but precise.

He swallowed thickly. “I don’t know her.”

“Well, maybe that’s a bad photo. You can’t recognize her.” Jenny opened the case file again and started pulling out more photos, laying them one by one in front of him. Each photo told the same story. The same girl from the first photo dead, shoved in the trunk of a car. “Still not ringing any bells?” She asked coldly. Greg rubbed his hands over his face as he looked over the photos but tried to remain silent. “Let me explain what’s going on here,” Jenny rested her elbows on the table and folded her hands together as she spoke. “That poor girl’s name was Sandy Harding, captain of her school’s lacrosse team. She was also an aspiring writer, and enjoyed Stephen King novels. Unlike you, she's never played hooky from school and is pretty well liked amongst her peers. She is the daughter of an old colleague of mine, who you may not know, but he works for the mayor’s office. And… she went missing a week ago.”

He looked at her incredulously. Clearly, he was surprised by that information. “Whoa, whoa. I did not…”

“Can you account for your whereabouts from last Friday?”

“I didn’t kidnap her. I swear.” From his tone, he almost sounded genuine.

“Oh, so you just happen to have a missing dead girl in your trunk? How did she get there? By magic?” Greg slumped against the chair again and stared at the ceiling, weighing all the options that laid before him. “Look, you are in some serious trouble, Greg. Do you know how much jail time you’ll serve for kidnapping and murder?”

He slammed a fist on the table. “I did not kill her and I did not kidnap her!”

“Then, what did you do, Thompson?” Jenny leaned forward an inch. “Clearly, you’re not some innocent bystander in all this. So spill. What happened with Sandy?”

After a brief pause, Greg gave up. “Do you have a pen?”

“A what?”

“Pen.” He repeated. “You want to know what happened, don’t you?” Jenny hesitated before withdrawing a pen from the case file and tearing a corner off one of the papers inside. “What you have to understand is…” He explained as he wrote. “I ain’t got nobody. My mom split, my dad’s dead. No brothers or sisters. It’s only been me. Which has been fine, but… sometimes you get lonely.” He pushed the pen and paper back towards her as she read over it. “It’s a web address. By the time she got in my car, she started seizing out or something. Before I could help her, she was already gone. With the rap sheet I got, I knew that I was in for it. Look, I will gladly admit my wrong doings. But I am not a murderer.”

Jenny rose from the chair, taking the case file with her and exited the interrogation room. She made a beeline to the closest open computer and entered in the web address into a browser. The arresting officer, Shelby Grant, came over to her, having just heard their whole conversation from the other side of the two-way mirror. “What’s this punk got us on now?” She asked, looking over Jenny’s shoulder. The website loaded up and pictures of several young, pretty girls stared back at them with lifeless eyes. “What the hell?” The woman gasped and stood straight up.

“It’s a trafficking site.” Jenny could hardly believe her eyes as she scrolled through the images.

“So what does this mean?” Grant felt stupid for asking, because she already knew what it meant. And made her want to puke. 

“it means Thompson was telling the truth. He didn’t kidnap her. He _bought_ her.”

>>>

“You can’t do that!” Johnny complained, stomping one foot on the ground.

“Johnny, it’s called a shared space. You do not get to hog the T.V. all day.” Jenny sneered at him, holding the remote out of his reach.

“But it’s the play-offs. Jakes and I have a fantasy league thing set up with Charlie and Paige. I got a lot riding on this.”

“That has nothing to do with whether or not you watch the game, Johnny.” She flipped the channel. “There’s a Dance Moms marathon going on right now, and I want to watch it. You can catch the highlights off the app or something.” Johnny groaned and stormed up to his room, mumbling curse words at her. He would have to watch the game on his phone. “Love you, too, baby.” She called after him.

“Man, shut up, Jenny!”

After laughing to herself victoriously, she settled down into the couch and opened the bag of Cheetos she had brought with her, ready for a day-off filled with crap television. Her mind was still on the Sandy Harding case of course, but she needed some time away from it. And who better to distract her than Abby Lee Miller? Her phone rang, and she groaned. _Why can’t I ever have a moment of peace?_ She lowered the volume on the T.V. and looked down at her phone to see who was calling. She read a name that she had not heard from in a while. About three months to be exact. Quickly, she answered the phone. “Mike?”

“Hey, stranger,” His voice chimed on the other line. She could practically hear him smiling.

“Hey to you. Wow, I almost didn’t recognize your name when it popped up on my phone. How’s things on the East Coast?” Jenny settled back into the couch, unable to keep the smile off her face. Ever since he had left for his new job in D.C., they had kept in scarce contact. Some texts here and there, but no phone calls or any in-depth conversations. The way they had left things, neither of them really knew where they stood. They knew they weren’t in a relationship, but even now, when she was talking to him, she could feel butterflies in her stomach.

“Just leaving the dream,” He joked, but his voice was strained.

“You sound stressed.”

“Oh, you have no idea. I've been working on this theory for like the past month or two, but I don't have a lot of evidence to back it up. As a result, the higher ups are getting impatient and are demanding solid evidence or they are shutting the whole thing down.”

“And I'm guessing finding evidence is a lot easier said than done?”

“That, my dear Jennifer, is the understatement of the year.”

Jenny fiddled with the remote in her other hand. “So, uh… what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice finally?”

He chuckled. “Well… it’s funny, but I’m going to be in town for a few days, chasing one of the leads for this case.”

“Oh, and you think there’s room for you at the inn?”

“Hey, you told me that I would always have a place to stay.”

“Dammit, I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that.” She laughed. “Well, good. It’ll be great seeing you again.” _Oh, shit, why did I say that?_ But she would be lying if she said that she hadn’t thought about him coming back a lot. For some reason, she had had many dreams about that exact scenario. Each one just as sappy and cheesy as the last one. It was almost annoying. She never thought that way about Mike. Sure, she had missed him, but it wasn’t like he was a soldier who got shipped out to war on the draft.

Mike heard her, but tried to scoot past it. He wasn’t ready to have that talk yet. “Yeah, I look forward to catching up with everyone. I’m flying in this weekend, so… I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, great.”

“Well…” He hesitated before ending the call with, “Ta-ta for now.”


	2. Off

The tension in the room was fierce. Everyone’s blood was pumping quickly with adrenaline. Paige, Johnny, and Jakes sat around the dining room table, blindfolded and waiting in anticipation. “There will be severe consequences for failure,” Jenny said solemnly, as she stood before the three of them. Charlie, who was standing behind her, rolled her eyes at the melodrama of her tone. “Everything will rely on your ability to…”

“What, he’s cheating!” Johnny pointed at Jakes, who was lifting the bandana off his eyes slightly.

“How do you know I’m cheating, Johnny?” Dale challenged. “You were looking, too.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Unbelievable.” They really couldn’t have any moment without Jakes and Johnny bickering like toddlers.

“Boys, knock it off.” Charlie scolded in her "mom" voice, reaching over and smacking Dale on the arm. “No cheating.”

“Are we doing this or what?” Paige asked, who still was sitting there with her blindfold intact.

“Bonus points to Paige for actual following the rules.” Zelanski cheered, who was also standing behind Jenny, ready to watch the game unfold.

Johnny whined again. “That’s not fair. Why does she get points?”

“There are no points, Johnny,” Jenny slapped him on the arm. “Now put it on.”

“Yeah, put it on.” Dale chimed in. The two of them watched each other slowly lower their blindfolds over their eyes. Johnny tried to keep an extra long eye on him until Jenny slapped him in the arm again. Then, he grumbled and put the bandana over his head.

Charlie sighed in relief. “There, now no one’s cheating.”

“Hallelujah,” Jenny said sarcastically. “Okay, Bates, all set?”

Zelanski held up the stopwatch. “Ready, set, go!” The three of them reached out in front of them and started putting together their guns. It was what they had coined “Gun War”. The object of the game was to assemble your gun blindfolded, spin ten times on your forehead on one of the shotguns, that Charlie tossed out in the living room, and go back to your gun and load it with bullets. First one to complete those three things won. It was a game they had been playing since the newbie, Zelanski, nicknamed Bates, had come to the house. He had been practicing assembling his gun one day, when Johnny challenged him and thus “Gun War” was born.

“Come on, Johnny.” Zelanski cheered. He and Jenny had laid down bets as to who would win. Zelanski bet on his boy Johnny claiming victory, Jenny had her money on Paige, and then Charlie got in on it and placed her bets with Jakes. The three of them watched as their champions scrambled to put their guns together.

“Go, Paige. Come on, girl power.” Jenny encouraged, practically jumping up and down. “Beat their asses.”

Johnny, Paige, and Jakes focused all their efforts, until Paige was the first to remove her blindfold and make a mad dash for the shotguns. Jenny cheered, as Johnny ran after her. Just as they had put the guns to their foreheads and started spinning, Dale came over and started to spin. Charlie, Bates, and Jenny were screaming like they were at a football game.

“You call that spinning, Johnny?” Jenny taunted. “My music box has better spins than that.”

“Don’t distract him.” Bates nudged her.

“One. Two,” Jakes started counting as he spun. “Five.”

“Hey, he’s cheating again.” Johnny said, while still spinning.

“Mind your business.” It was sometimes just so easy to get under Johnny’s skin, and Jakes was enjoying testing out the man’s limits.

Charlie suppressed another smile. “One more word about cheating, Johnny, I’m pulling you out.”

Jenny kept cheering. “Come on, Paige, two more turns!”

“Johnny, stop focusing on Jakes.” Zelanski encouraged.

“There’s no guns downstairs.” A voice said. No one had heard that voice in a long time. Everyone stopped and turned around to see a familiar face standing before them, duffel bag in hand.

“Mike!” Charlie smiled and leapt toward him with her arms stretched out to him.

Jenny thought she would be happy to see him again. It had been three months, after all. And the last time he was there, well… things were different now. And sure, in a way, she was happy to see him again. Was she expecting swelling music and angel choirs to start singing when they reunited again? No. But still, something just felt… off. “Yo, Mikey,” Johnny blinked as he tried to steady the dizziness he felt. “Dead man walking.”

“That’s not funny, Johnny.” Jenny snapped at him. Paul had just told them that the Caza cartel had a hit out on him. Well, more so, they had a hit on Marine Mike, the guy who was Mike’s cover as Bello’s right-hand man. Paul had explained to them that they were going to try to use him as bait, and try and bring down the Caza cartel. Jenny didn’t like the plan, but she also didn’t like that Mike had a bounty on his head. Somehow, she just knew that things weren’t going to be as smooth as her brother believed them to be.

“It’s a little funny.” Johnny shrugged, as he made his towards the newcomer. Charlie, Paige, Johnny went over to give him hugs to greet him. Jenny lagged behind slightly. What exactly was she supposed to do? Run to him and weep in his arms? Give him a fist bump? They had never defined what their relationship was. What if the flame had died out with the time they were apart? What if it was still there? Jenny was trying to calculate her big move until his blue eyes met hers. Then she felt her feet drag towards him, like they were on autopilot.

“Hey, you.” She smiled.

“Hey,” He wrapped his arms around her for the first time in three months. The last time they had hugged each other, the day he left, they had clung to each other. It was full of emotion. Now it was… well, different. The uncertainty about how to approach each other hung in the air. The rest of the house noticed it, too, as they all gave each other secret glances.

As they pulled apart, Jakes yelled, “And we have a winner!” Everyone looked and saw that he had completed all the tasks for “Gun War”.

“Are you serious?” Jenny groaned, secretly grateful for the distraction.

Johnny shook his head violently. “No, no, veto that.”

“You can’t do that, Jakes.” Paige shouted at him, as he walked pompously over to the group.

“He’s cheating again! Charlie!” Johnny looked to her for help, but she was too busy laughing.

“Goddammit, Dale.” Jenny cursed. Now she owed Charlie twenty bucks.

“You chose to greet Levi and I chose to be a champion,” Jakes bragged to Johnny. “Another poor life decision, Johnny-boy.” He walked up to Mike, who took a step back instinctively. It’s not that they had left on bad terms. In fact, when Mike had left, they were pretty neutral. But the two of them had never really clicked. And Jakes had frequently called him a “rat” for hiding the truth about investigation Paul behind everyone’s back. And it was no secret that Jakes tended to be a bit of lonely grump, so Mike wasn’t expecting a big emotional reunion. But much to the blonde man’s surprise, Jakes picked him up and spun him around. “Welcome home, son!” He said, with a big smile on his face.

When Mike’s feet hit the ground again, the shock on his face made Jenny giggle. “What the hell happened to you, man?” He asked the now cheerful Jakes.

“What? A man can’t be happy?” Dale shrugged.

“He’s been like this for a couple of months.” Johnny explained. “It’s weird, right?”

Zelanski finally stepped forward to introduce himself. “I’m Wayne Zelanski. I’m with the DEA.”

“He took your room.” Charlie informed Mike.

“No, call him ‘Bates’.” Paige told him.

The newbie shook his head and gave Mike a pleading look. “No, you don’t have to call me ‘Bates’.”

“Why ‘Bates’?” Mike asked.

“Well, ‘cause he mastur…” Dale explained while making an obscene hand gesture. “Bates.”

“Yeah, Jenny caught him jerking off on a surveillance op.” Johnny pointed to her, as she cringed at the memory. It was one of the first op’s she worked with him and it definitely made an impression.

Bates stammered and tried to explain himself. “I was alone in the car for like 12 hours and…”

“And now you’re in my room.” Mike shook his head in disbelief.

“Yeah,” He admitted, as everyone else laughed. “I didn’t know you were crashing here. I’m good with the couch.”

“No, it’s fine. I have good memories sleeping on the couch.” Mike assured him. Jenny shifted from one foot to another. _Sure, good memories. Let’s go with that._

“Beer?” Johnny offered him, coming back from the kitchen.

He shook his head. “Op tomorrow.”

“It’s just a beer.” He argued. “What, you didn’t get that stick out of your ass when you were eastside?”

“Lay off him, Johnny.” Charlie ordered.

“Where’s Briggs?” Mike asked, scanning the room. He had just realized that he was the only one missing.

“He’s upstairs.” Jenny told him, nodding in the general direction.

“You know, Briggs,” Bates sighed. “Never any time to party.”

“Yeah, right.” Mike laughed at his joke, remembering all the times Briggs would at any given time have a bottle in his hand. But soon realized he was the only one laughing. He looked around at the rest of group. No one else was laughing. Then he looked to Jenny. “We’re talking about Paul Briggs, right?”

“It’s a new day, son” Johnny then turned and pointed to Jakes and Paige. “Round two?” The three of them went over to the dining room table, Zelenski following close behind them, trying to talk Charlie into place another bet.

Jenny went to go join them, but felt Mike reach for her arm. “Hey,” He said as she turned to face him. “Is there something I missed? When did Jakes become so cheerful, and when did Briggs become so focused?”

“You were gone, Mike.” She shrugged. “What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. I guess the last time I saw him, he sure wasn’t a workaholic.”

“Well, that was a while ago. Things are different now. _He’s_ different now. He’s finally in a good place. Did you think time froze when you walked out that door?”

He sighed. “I guess not. But you know, it wasn’t that long ago.”

“It was long enough, okay.” Jenny insisted.

Mike dropped his voice low and spoke quietly. “So… is he clean?”

She gave him a warning look and jabbed a finger towards him. “Don’t you dare start dredging up all that stuff again, okay? I’m serious, Mike.”

Mike tried to assure her and calm her down. “Alright, alright. I just can’t believe so much has changed.”

“Go see for yourself then.” She shrugged and moved to join the others. Yet again, he grabbed for her arm.

“Hey, it’s good to see you.” Mike smiled at her. Damn. She had forgotten about his damn puppy eyes. And his bone-melting smile. All the old emotions came rushing back all at once.

“Jenny! Get over here!” Zelanski called for her, snapping her out of the trance Mike had somehow put on her. Giving him an apologetic look, she gently tore herself free from Mike and went to oversee the next round of “Gun War”.

>>>

“Okay, why don’t I swing by tomorrow morning?” Jenny spoke into her phone as she gathered her dirty laundry and put it in her hamper. She was on the phone with Grant, who had just updated her on the Harding case. They were starting the autopsy on the girl and would have the results by the morning.

“Only if you promise to bring a dozen donuts.” Grant joked.

“You are a walking stereotype, Shelbs.” She jabbed at her playfully. She had been the one to reach out to her when Sandy Harding went missing. Even though, it had been a short investigation, they formed a pretty good working friendship. The bond had really seemed to have formed over donuts more than anything. “But I’ll be sure to swing by Krispy Kreme. Though, I can’t promise there will be twelve by the time I get there.”

Grant laughed. “Yeah, I figured. Just let me lick the box and I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

Jenny hung up the phone and picked up the hamper to bring to the laundry room. As she exited her room, she looked and saw Charlie just about to knock on Paul’s bedroom door. Paul and Charlie had developed a “thing” over the past couple months. They been trying to keep their “thing” on the down-low, but practically everyone knew. It was obvious with all the times neither one of them was in their room when someone was looking for them, the secret glances they gave each other. Jenny smiled. “Charlie!”

Charlie jumped in surprise and looked over to see Jenny bent over in laughter. “Jenny, you almost gave me a heart attack. Christ.” She gasped and sauntered over to her.

“Borrowing a cup of sugar?” Jenny asked with a smile, nodding behind them towards Paul’s door.

She sighed, knowing that there was no use in denying it now. “I’m sorry, we didn’t tell you.”

“No, I’m happy for you, honestly. You two are great together.” Jenny assured her. “Though, it might be weird if I keep calling you, ‘Mama’.”

Charlie playfully pushed her. “We didn’t want to be insensitive to you.”

Jenny scoffed. “Oh, my god, really? There’s nothing to be insensitive about. Look, there is no trauma with me and Mike.” She tried to lower her voice, hoping that he wasn’t listening. In truth, she wasn’t really sure what it was between the two of them anymore. But it’s not like she had been avoiding intimacy while he was away…

“Yeah, what’s the deal with you two, anyway? Why was it so weird earlier?”

“It wasn’t weird.” Jenny tried to say, but Charlie gave her a knowing “mom” look. “Okay, so it was weird. I don’t know.”

“You had something special before. What happened to that?”

“Time and distance happened.” She replied. “I mean, we didn’t really have much before he left and now… I don’t know. It’s almost like we’re completely different people. I thought I knew how I was going to react when he came back... but it wasn't anything like I thought.”

Charlie tried to understand. The brief fling she and Paul had many years back had been sort of similar. It was mostly just pure lust actually. And when the flame died down, they were able to stay friends. But with Jenny and Mike… it wasn’t exactly lust. “Well, I hope you kids can work it out. I was rooting for you.”

Jenny readjusted the laundry basket at her hip, trying to find a way to change the subject. “You’re distracting me from the issue at hand. You and Paul have my blessing. Honestly, he’s been better with you around. And with this Harding case riding my ass and the FBI certifications, I wasn’t able to always be there for him. I’m just glad he has someone to look out for him.”

Charlie gave her a smile. “Thanks, kiddo. And you can still call me ‘Mama’ if you want. Truth is, I kinda like it.”

“Good, ‘cause I wasn’t about to stop.” She began her journey towards the laundry room again, before stopping in the middle of the hallway and turning back towards Charlie. “Although, we might want to revisit this, if marriage ever comes into play.” Then, she left Charlie to her task of laundry, while Charlie stood in the hallway for a second longer, shaking her head and smiling.

As she tossed her dirty clothes into the washer, Jenny tried to sort out her feelings about Mike. For about a week after he had left, she hadn’t exactly been mourning, but she had been… bummed. She had missed him. Despite all the weirdness and complications, she had still considered him a friend. They had kept in touch a little. But both of their schedules and crazy lives had left little room for “shooting the breeze”. Maybe they should have talked about their relationship before he left. Perhaps then, she could understand exactly what she was supposed to do. 

“Oh, come on.” Zelanski walking into the room forced her back to the present. “I was going to do a load tonight.”

“Snooze, you lose, Bates.” She smiled, turning the machine on. “But I can let you squeeze one in after this one.” Jenny resorted through the remaining clothes in her basket.

“So that’s the infamous Mike Warren.” He said, setting down his hamper and leaning against the wall.

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Are you going to be weird about this?” Her mind went back to one of Zelanski’s first nights in Graceland. As part of an initiation of sorts, Jenny had challenged him to a drink-off, to which she won by a landslide. Everyone in the house had jokingly called him “New Mike” to tease Jenny, so she had to tell him about her and Mike’s little “fling”. Towards the end of the night, she and Zelanski had somehow ended up spending the night together. Much to Jenny’s disgust with herself. Not that Zelanski wasn’t attractive. But the fact that he would be the second newcomer to Graceland that she had slept with. It was clear that she was developing a type. But that was another reason why she felt so uncertain with Mike. She hadn't exactly been saving herself for him. But nothing really ever came of any of her brief trysts. Who's to say Mike hadn't found someone else?

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m not being weird.”

“By asking about him, you’re being weird.”

“It’s just nice to know the guy who I was being compared to for the first month of being here. I just didn’t expect him to be so… Abercrombie and Fitch.”

At last, Jenny stood up fully and rubbed her temples. “Look, if this is some sort of… staking your claim bullshit…”

“I’m just saying…”

“Zelanski, we had _one_ night. One drunken night and that’s it. There is nothing happening here, nor will there ever be. Not after catching you jerking off in that surveillance van the next day.” She shuddered at the memory. At first, she had thought there was some mic or transmitter malfunction. Zelanski hadn’t answered her radio, so when she went to investigate…

Now he rolled his eyes. “Will ever I live that down?”

“No, you certainly won’t.” She told him. “Johnny is a self-proclaimed man-whore, yet he has never come close to doing that on an op.”

Zelanski kicked at the floor. “All I’m saying is… you’re a pretty cool person, Jenny. And you deserve someone who’s really special.”

She knew that he was being sincere. That was the thing about Zelanski, when he wasn’t undercover, he was brutally honest. Admittedly, it was a breath of fresh air after all the sneaking around Mike did. Johnny had recently changed his name on the chore wheel to “Better Mike” because of it. But Jenny appreciated it. He was a good guy. “Thanks, Mr. Rogers.” She joked.

>>>

Mike had just gotten off the phone with Jessica Foster. She was technically his boss, though not directly. To be specific, she worked for his boss, as a right-hand man of sorts. And yet, they were sleeping together. It had started as rebound for him. And he had not tried to hide that from her. Mike had told Jessica about Jenny. Well, not a lot, but enough for her to get the picture. But his rebound slowly became a way to work off steam. She was not his girlfriend.

Still, some part of him felt a little guilty. But why? He and Jenny had never really talked about being exclusive. They had never talked about anything. So it wasn’t cheating in the strictest sense. And maybe Jenny had found someone new while he was away. It’s not like he was expecting her to wait for him. And he certainly hoped that she hadn’t expected that from him.

He laid flat on his back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. When Paul Briggs had called him to invite him out for a visit, and to help taking down the cartel, he thought it would have been like old times. Like no time had ever passed. But it was clear his expectations did not meet reality.


	3. Stardom

Jenny dragged herself downstairs the next morning, hearing Paige and Zelanski in the kitchen. She had never been a morning person, but she was eager to get the police station to see the results of Sandy Harding’s autopsy. A quick sniff in the air told her that someone was making eggs and bacon. Her morning grumpiness lessened ever so slightly. She entered the room just as Zelanski was rambling in Spanish at Paige. “English, por favor.” She groaned. “Too early for anything else.”

“Johnny!” Paige yelled as she searched the cabinets.

“Jesus, Paige.” Jenny flinched as she made her way to the coffee pot. “Too early for that, too.”

Luckily, Johnny was just coming down the stairs, sorting through the mail. “What?”

“Where are all my travel mugs?” She asked him, as Jenny tried to hide a smile. He had been sneaking her collection of travel mugs with him on ops that she wasn’t on. Jenny had told him over and over again that Paige wasn’t going to like it. Now it appears as she was about to witness the smackdown.

“I don’t know.” Johnny tried to play dumb. “Why do you assume it was me?”

Paige looked to Jenny. “Has he been taking my mugs?”

She smiled widely. “Yes.”

Johnny scoffed. “Snitch.”

“Hey, calm down, amigos.” Zelanski soothed. “Johnny, let me fix you up a plate."

“Fine,” Johnny offered up his mail. He leaned over and put the stack in his mouth like a dog, as Jenny rolled her eyes at them. They had a bro bond, sure, but did they really have to act like literal dogs?

Paige wasn’t done with the conversation though. “So if I go up to your room, am I going to find all of my missing mugs?”

“Depends on who gets up there first.” He joked.

Jenny jabbed him in the arm. “Anything in there for me?”

“Morning,” Mike came into the kitchen, looking over a case file, eager to go back undercover. There were four other people in the room, but only three people said ‘morning’ back to him. You can probably guess who stayed silent and avoided looking directly at him. She had thought that sleeping on it would have cleared things up. But it didn't. She still didn't know how to talk to him.

“Eggs, Warren?” Bates offered.

Mike looked at him, as if he was genuinely surprised. “Please.”

“Hey, yo, why do you think Jakes would get a credit report?” Johnny asked holding up an envelope.

“None of your goddamn business is why, man.” Jakes up behind him like a ghost and snatched the envelope from him. Jenny hadn’t even heard him come down the stairs.

“Dale, chill.” Jenny slapped him on the shoulder.

Mike poked his head from behind the fridge door. “Hey, anything in here of yours that I shouldn’t be drinking?” He asked Dale, who gave him a knowing smile. “Is he still doing the whole labeling thing?”

“Not for a while.” Paige told him.

“Why _did_ you stop labeling things, bro?” Johnny asked Jakes.

He shrugged slightly. “Maybe I grew up.”

Charlie came bounding in. “Or maybe Briggs stopped stealing your shit.” She handed Paige some keys. “All gassed up.”

“Thank you.” Paige then took the plate of eggs Zelanski made for her and made a beeline for the stairs. But was sure to call over her shoulder, “Hey, Mike. Good luck today.”

“Yeah, good luck.” Most everyone took turns saying, giving him encouraging nods. Jenny still didn’t say anything.

Mike looked around, feeling slightly touched. He almost forgot the camaraderie that was a part of the house. “Thanks, guys.”

Jenny could feel his eyes on her. Feeling curious, she looked at him, confirming her suspicions. The damn puppy eyes were locked onto hers. After another second, she could feel everyone else’s eyes in the room on them. _Say something, dummy._ “Just don’t get stabbed again.” She offered.

“Good advice.” Johnny chuckled, as a smile formed on Mike’s face.

“Do not get stabbed.” Charlie repeated with emphasis.

“I’m out.” Dale went for the door. “I gotta go see a guy about a thing.”

“Well, that’s specific.” Jenny muttered into her coffee mug.

“Are you buying a new car?” Johnny asked him. “Can I go test drive it with you?”

“I’m not buying a new car, Johnny. Leave me alone. See ya.” Dale slipped out the door. That was typical Dale. Yeah, he had been a little more cheery as of late, but he was still not a big sharer.

Charlie slapped Johnny on the head with an envelope. “Do you have to be so nosy all the time?”

“Does he have to be so secretive all the time?” He countered.

“Hey,” Zelanski handed Mike his plate of eggs. “Who else wants some?” Charlie waved her hand at him, and offering a plate in his direction.

“Mm, smells good.” Paul entered the scene, smelling the delectable scent of breakfast. “Make me a double. Me and Mike are gonna need the protein.”

“Not to be a Debbie Downer,” Jenny spoke up, as she slurped the rest of her coffee. “But do you really think you two are going to be able to take down an entire cartel today?”

“Oh, ye of such little faith, sis,” Briggs gasped dramatically as he sat down next to Johnny. “Are you really going to doubt the dynamic duo that is Mike and I?”

Mike chuckled as he started to bite into his eggs. Jenny bit back a sassy retort, remembering the last time the “dynamic duo” was together. Instead, she said, “I just want you to be careful. That’s all. And if you think this is going to be a straight-forward operation, you just as naïve as you are annoying, Paulie.” She playfully batted at her brother.

“If you’re so worried,” Mike shrugged. “Why not run surveillance?”

“Oh, you think your operation is the only thing happening today?” She challenged. “I have my own case I’m working on, thank you very much.” She glanced at her phone to check the time. “Speaking of which, I also gotta bounce and see a guy about a thing.”

“If it’s a new car, I want in.” Johnny joked.

Jenny shot him a warning look. Zelanski pointed to his frying pan. “Should I make you a to-go plate?”

“Nah, I’ve already got breakfast plans. But thanks anyway.” Before leaving, she turned to face the group again. “Hey, but seriously. If you guys run into trouble, you can call me.”

Mike looked up at her and nodded. “Thanks, Jenn.” Their gaze lingered on each other for a moment, before she forced her body to turn and leave. Grant was probably waiting for her anyway.

>>>

“Autopsy confirms the seizure.” Grant informed Jenny as she walked into the conference room. Jenny had set up a little workspace, while she was working the Harding case that almost acted like their own personal headquarters.

“Good morning, Grant. Oh, my day’s been great; thanks for asking.” She joked, as she finished typing a line of code into one of the computers in front of her.

She ignored her and laid out the report on the table so they both could see. “Toxicology reports some roofies in her system, which might be from the guys who were selling. But as supported by her medical records and the examination of her brain, she died from a seizure. She never grew out of her childhood epilepsy. No telling what caused the seizure that killed her, though. It could have been stress-induced or... well, if it was done on purpose, there's not a lot of evidence pointing in that direction.” 

Jenny read over the report carefully; her brain was running wild with theories. She had been pouring everything she had into this case. It had started out as a simple missing person, and now it had snowballed to human trafficking. It was almost getting to be too overwhelming. “Okay, I need to talk this out or my head’s going to explode.” She moved towards the board she had put together detailing the timeline of Sandy Harding’s case. Grant sat on the table and looked the board over while she spoke. “So last Friday, Sandy goes to a friend’s house for a study session. She leaves her house at around 6 p.m. according to her mother. Somewhere between her house and the friend’s house, she gets grabbed. Officers respond to an abandoned car on the side of the road that turns out to be hers, keys still in the ignition.”

“No signs of a struggle or car failure either.” Grant added, recalling pulling up to the car with a chill.

“And where was it found exactly?” She asked, looking over the large map she had tacked up to the wall and grabbing a push pin to mark the spot.

Officer Grant sifted through some of the papers that were scattered on the table. “Uh, Quentin Street, just a few feet away from where it intersects with 78th Avenue.”

Jenny searched the map until she found the spot, placing the push pin there. “And her address is…” She followed the streets until she found the location. “Here.” It was just a few blocks away from her house. It was bone-chilling, thinking that you could disappear so close to your own home. “And her friend’s house was…” Shelby walked over to the map and pointed out the spot, as Jenny laid down another push pin. They both took a step back to look over the map. “So this is strange…” Jenny pondered looking at the three push pins. “Sandy’s friend’s house was located to the east of her place. But her car was found northwest of her home. Which way was the car facing?”

Grant racked her brain as she tried to recall the car. “Um, it was facing 78th Avenue, so west.”

A light bulb went off over her head. “So it’s like… Sandy was driving in the opposite direction.”

“Could she have been taking the long way?”

“But why? I think it would take about 5 minutes max to get there. Why would she go the opposite way? And this is a relatively low-crime area, if someone had grabbed her, chances are someone would have noticed. Unless she went willingly. So… could she have lied about the study date?”

Shelby shrugged. “I guess, but she was a self-proclaimed good girl, who had a good relationship with her parents. Why would she lie?”

Jenny chewed on her thumbnail in thought. “I don’t know. But I think that’s the key to finding out what happened to her.”

“Finding anything on the auction site?” Grant asked.

She sighed and returned to the seat in front of her computer. “I haven’t worked with the dark net in a long time, so I’m a bit rusty. But I’m trying to see if I can isolate an IP address or run facial recognition software on any of the girls that are for sale. But the guys running these sites are surprisingly good with technology. It’s giving me a lot of trouble.” Grant just nodded and stared off in the distance, her jaw clamped. Jenny took notice of this. “What’s wrong?”

“You always hear stories about this kind of thing.” She replied. “You know, human trafficking happens all over the world. Every once in a while you will read about it in the papers or hear about it on the news. I guess… I just never expected it to be in my own backyard. How can anyone look at these young women and place a price on their heads?”

“Because they’re the scum of the Earth.” Jenny tried to assure her. “Look, I’m just angry that these bastards exist as much as you do. And that’s why we got to hunt them down. I’ll try to reach out to some contacts I have that work with these kinds of cases. See if they have any advice or leads we can pursue.”

Grant placed her hands on her hips and stared down at the ground. “You didn’t have to be the one to inform Sandy’s parents about her death, Jenn. The look on their faces…” The woman tried to stop herself from crying. Police officers were supposed to remain as stoic as possible. That was their job. To be unwavering protectors and enforcers in society. Not to mention most of the officers she worked with were men. And it wasn’t like they were misogynistic, except for a couple of them, but if they caught her crying, she would be teased about it for a while. "No parent is supposed to outlive their child. And they definitely are not supposed to lose them to sex traders. If my little Ellie..."

“Hey,” Jenny stood and rubbed a comforting hand over her friend’s arm. “You are doing everything you can to help this family. What happened to Sandy wasn’t your fault. And I know that you're worried about your family and protecting them from the ugliness in this world. We’re going to find these guys and give them all the hell we can give them. Then you can go tell her parents that their daughter has justice.” The two of them embraced, Jenny trying to send her reassuring vibes. But over Grant’s shoulder, Jenny could see the board on the wall. Pictures of Sandy both alive and dead staring back at her. Despite what she had just told her colleague, she wondered if there ever would be justice for Sandy. If there really was a light at the end of the tunnel.

>>>

Mike was sitting out on the beach, staring into a fire he had created for himself, and sipping absentmindedly at a beer. Night had fallen and he need some time to think. He thought back to the last time he was in that spot. Paul Briggs had just been cleared of killing Juan Badillo and returned after a week of hiding from the FBI. He had found out about his job in D.C., and Jenny practically forced him out the door. Jenny. They had called their little “fling” off, seemingly mutually, when he was shipped East. He remembered how hard it had been to leave all of this behind. But was Jenny right? Had things truly changed that much?

Briggs was the one who had called him out here. Today, their plan to take down the cartel backfired, and now Paul was ready to pull the plug on the whole thing. He might have let his frustrations out on him and Johnny, but the reason why he came out here was because he wanted to take down a major drug cartel. And just because one plan failed, now he was expected to just walk away again?

“So,” Jenny took him by surprise. He had been so lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard her approach. When he looked up from the fire, she was standing in front of him, hands crossed over her chest. From the look on her face, she was not happy. She had just returned from a day with Grant, when she discovered a moping Johnny in the living room. Johnny told her that Mike had been annoyed with them and told them that he thought they were ‘burnouts’ and not taking their jobs seriously. “D.C. turned you into an asshole, huh?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “So I’m an asshole now?”

“Yeah. Just like how we’re all ‘burnouts’.” She retorted.

“I didn’t mean you.”

“Well, next time, you ought to be a little more specific.” Jenny took a seat on the beach near him, but not next to him. Her body turned to face him, so she give him a proper scolding. “Spinning around a shotgun doesn’t make you a ‘burnout’, Mike.”

Mike sighed, fiddling with the bottle in his hand. “Okay, I shouldn’t have called him that and I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, and you should really get the tree out of your ass.” Jenny stared at him intently. He had forgotten how intense her stares could be. “It seems like you’ve been experiencing culture shock the whole time you’ve been here. And you… What happened to you, Mike?”

“Look, when I first got to D.C., I was… well, I was a rock star. I was a real undercover agent. Everyone looked at me like I was some sort of celebrity. They were so excited. So excited… that they stuck me behind a desk.”

“Well, isn’t that what you wanted?”

He regarded her carefully. “Maybe. But you know… after living a life like this…” He gestured toward the house. “And doing what we do, nothing else seems like real life.” He took another sip and pointed his stare back towards the fire.

Jenny watched him. “That is… completely pathetic.”

Her bluntness surprised him. “What?”

“A rock star, Mike?” She argued. “Since when do you care about the fame and glory?”

“That’s not what I said.” He tried to say.

“No, it is. You were disappointed because you were becoming pencil pusher versus cracking skulls and thus, fading into obscurity. That’s not the Mike I know.”

Mike wanted to say that she was wrong. But a large part of him knew she was right. Though, he was not about to admit that to her. “Look, I’ve been working on this theory. This bus theory, right? I basically forced them to let me pursue it. And I’ve ended up burning through all the clout I had going in.”

“Okay, so you are here to try and make yourself a rock star again?” Mike only bit his lip, not wanting to answer her. “Well, again I say, that is completely pathetic.”

“Kick a man while he’s down, Jenn.” He muttered.

“Shut up, Mike.” She snapped at him, her anger finally unleashing. “No one likes a wannabe rock star, so you can put that ego away. I didn't even know that you had an ego until now. And I don't think I've ever wanted to punch you in the face more than I do now.”

“I came here to do a job, Jenny. And now your brother has decided to wimp out and call the whole thing off.”

“He doesn’t want you to get killed, Mike. This is Caza, we’re talking about here. Those guys don’t play around.”

“Well, now he’s going to pull the plug anyway, so I basically wasted vacation days.”

Jenny tried not to feel hurt by his words. “We were all excited to have you back, you know. We thought it was going to be one big family reunion. And never once was it because we thought you were a rock star. Those suit-wearing monkeys back East might think that because their biggest thrill in life is when the copy machine breaks down. To us, you’re just Mike, the happy-go-lucky kid that’s just grateful to be here. And I don’t know where that kid is, but he has not been here for a while.”

Mike glanced at her; his brow knit together. “Is that really what you thought of me? Just some little kid?”

She glanced out at the ocean, chewing the inside of her cheek. Charlie had asked her earlier what had changed between them. Now, she was starting to see exactly what had changed. “Stop trying to prove yourself, Mike. You don’t need to prove anything. Not to us. And certainly, not to me.”

They let the sound of the crackling fire and the crashing of waves be the only sounds for a moment. Both of them recalling how things used to be between them. “Do you think…” Mike started to ask, but hesitated for a moment. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to get back to the way things were?”

Jenny looked at him, wanting to say a whole bunch of things at once. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I think… that’s going to require a lot of soul-searching and… reflection. And how badly you want to maintain your rock stardom.” Slowly, she started to stand up again, ready to go back inside. “If you see that happy-go-lucky kid any time soon, tell him… he is dearly missed.”

As she went to leave, he called after her. “Will you at least try and talk to Paul for me?”

Her feet planted themselves in the sand. He really thought she was going to help him? After all the attitude he has been showing? “You’re a big boy, Agent Warren.” Jenny glanced over her shoulder. “You can fight your own battles.”


	4. Fun

“Anything you guys can give me, I will take. Thanks again.” Jenny hung up the phone and turned towards Shelby, who was sitting across from her. They were eating their lunch at a fast-food joint in town, taking a very needed break from the case. “Okay, my contacts are going to try and find dirt on these auctioneers and the site they are using. Hopefully, they will have a little more luck than me.”

After swallowing part of her burger, Grant nodded towards her. “Hey, so, everything okay?”

Jenny gave her a confused look. “Yeah, why?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You just seem… a little on edge today.”

Slumping back in her chair, Jenny sighed deeply. That morning, she had found out that Mike had used his D.C. influence, so he was placed in charge of his and Paul’s op with the Caza cartel. She couldn’t believe that Mike would go over Paul’s head like that. She had thought that after their talk by the fire the night before, he would have at least tried to be a team player. But no, it was clear that he was still trying to chase the glory. And it disappointed her to no end. “Just some troubles at the house, that’s all.” She replied vaguely.

“Well, that really clears things up, thanks.” Shelby said sarcastically. “Does it have anything to do with that Mike guy?”

Jenny regretted telling her about Mike coming for a visit. It had inevitably lead to her explaining their story to Grant, who now loved to tease her about it as much as her housemates did. “Why would you think that?”

“Because before when you talked about him, you had a smile on your face. Now, you won’t even look at me when I mention him.” She teased. “Come on, I want to know all about it.”

“Change the subject, please.” She rolled her eyes.

Shelby smiled, and obeyed her wish, sensing that she wasn’t ready to talk about it. Yet. “Well, Greg Thompson, the guy who had Sandy stashed in his car, got a court date finally. Who knows what will come of that.”

“Has he given any more details to help us?”

“Nope. Still maintains that his only crime is buying her. Still, it seems rather coincidental that she died the second he got a hold of her. But either way I"ll be happy to see his ass in a jail cell.”

Jenny’s phone started ring then. Paul was calling her. “Paulie, how’s the cartel take-down going?” She greeted him as she answered the phone.

“Jenn, we have a problem.” The tone in his voice made her sit straight up.

“What happened?”

“They got Mike.” He told her. Part of her was surprised by the worry that instantly consumed her. She had just sworn to hate him, and now she’s concerned about his safety? “They ditched his tracker he was wearing and we lost him. We don’t know where he is.”

“I’m on my way. Text me the address.” She immediately hung up the phone and scooped her food onto her tray. “I gotta go.”

“Wait, what? I thought you were going to help me canvas Sandy’s neighborhood?”

“Something’s come up.” She said, slurping the rest of her drink and standing up.

Shelby looked at her worried. “Is your brother okay?”

“He’s fine. We just have a missing agent. If you get any new information, you call me, okay?” Jenny ran out the restaurant in a flash, mad at the worry she felt for Mike. Well, despite him being an asshole now, he didn’t deserve to get fed to Caza hitmen.

>>>

Jenny pulled up to the location Paul had texted her, just Charlie did. Apparently, he had also called her when they couldn’t find him. Through city cameras, Johnny, Zelenski, and Paul were able to find Mike’s location. The two guys who had grabbed him had been shot by their TAC team, just as Mike was about to be suffocated with a plastic bag over his head. Paul had sent Jenny a text saying that Mike was found and still alive, which gave her some sense of relief.

“You can’t go in there.” An officer stationed outside the house where they had found Mike tried to tell Charlie and Jenny as they walked up the door.

“Let us through, we’re family.” Charlie barked at him, as Jenny pushed him out of the way. They found Mike, who had been forced to strip down to just his underwear when he was grabbed was now fully clothed again, and Paul standing in the entryway, processing the scene. Charlie ran up to Mike and hugged him tight. “You okay? I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Charlie, let him breathe.” Paul told her, as Mike reassured Charlie that he was fine.

Jenny felt more relief upon seeing him standing and seemingly unharmed. “Bet that desk job doesn’t look so bad now, does it?” She asked him, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice. Yes, she was glad he was alive, but now she can go back to focusing her efforts on hating him. 

Mike looked at her. “Oh, yeah. You know… pushing papers, answering calls.” He tried to joke.

But she was ready to joke around with him just yet. Things still weren’t okay. “Glad you didn’t kick the bucket, Mikey.”

“Hey, Mike,” Charlie called from the other room. She was leaning over the two dead hitmen and examining their necks. “Looks like you got hit by a couple of newbies.”

“What do you mean?” Paul asked, as everyone moved to get a closer look.

“This ink is still fresh,” Charlie explained. She had been working undercover as a tattoo artist for the past month, so she could tell a lot about tattoos. “And the skin is still red and puffy. These are some raw recruits.”

Mike and Paul exchanged confused looks. “That doesn’t make any sense.” Jenny said out loud.

“Quite the initiation.” Paul wagered as he nudged Mike. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yeah,” Mike nodded pensively. “If you’re going to torture and kill a guy, you’re not going to send your freshmen.”

“No, you send the best you got.”

After putting on gloves, Jenny picked up the plastic bag that just moments before was being forced over Mike’s head. “Well, the plastic bags are new.” Usually, Caza was notorious for blood sports.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen that in Caza’s books of tricks.” Paul scratched his chin.

“Meaning?” Jenny already knew the answer.

“This wasn’t Caza.” Mike stated.

Charlie had to chuckle. Of course, things could never be simple in their line of work. “Looks you’re a popular man, Mikey.”

Jenny gave the plastic bag in her hand to one of the processors examining the scene and walked over to Mike again. Paul kneeled down by the bodies to be level with Charlie. “You sure you’re okay?” She asked him.

Mike’s brow was furrowed as he thought. Thinking about the question the two men had asked him, as the bag was placed over his mouth. The line. The bus line. It could have been a coincidence. But what were the chances that his theory about buses was right… “I think I might be on to something.” 

“And by that, do you mean on to stardom?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

>>>

“Ha! Look at your hair, bro!” Jenny laughed hysterically as she pointed to the computer screen in front of her. Johnny, Paige, Jakes, and Jenny were sitting in the living room. Johnny had gotten on Jenny’s nerves, so she decided to pull up his yearbook photos from high school. Paige also giggled, seeing Johnny’s unruly mop of hair.

“Is this why you shave your head, dude?” Jakes asked him, his smile as wide as his face.

“That’s not funny, come on.” Johnny tried to take the computer away from her, but got his hand slapped. “Ow!”

“You know the rules,” Jenny shrugged. “Touch my shit, get hit.”

“Hey, where’s Charlie?” Paul and Mike came into the room.

“Downstairs.” Paige replied as Briggs shouted for her to come upstairs. They could tell from his demeanor that something important was about to be said.

“What’s going on?” Zelanski came into the room, drying his hands off with a dish towel. He had just been doing the dishes, since it was his turn on the chore wheel and came to investigate the yelling.

“What’s with the yelling?” Charlie asked, when she came up the stairs.

“Everybody, Mike here.” Paul gestured dramatically to the blonde man next to him. “Has got an announcement.”

Jenny closed her laptop and chewed nervously on a pretzel. “Gonna call Johnny a burnout again?” Zelanski questioned, causing Jenny to chuckle slightly, which also caused her to almost choke on the pretzel she was eating. Clearing her throat, she tried to hide her amusement from Bates’ question.

“I shouldn’t have called you that.” Mike told Johnny apologetically.

“Thank you.” Johnny nodded, but his tone was less than forgiving. Everyone settled in and listened to Mike, sensing the seriousness of the situation.

“Listen. The guys who…” Mike explained very matter-of-factly. “You know, did what they did to me, were pretending to be Caza. So now the question is, who were they? Who are they working for? For the last few months, I’ve been investigating a theory that I think holds the answer. Buses. Smuggling contraband in passenger buses. And the FBI has given me a team to prove it.”

“Great.” Everyone told him, as they each passed around their congratulations to him. Jenny could have laughed. He had really gathered everyone to tell them that? Paige and Johnny got up from the couch to leave.

“Guys, guys; I’m not done yet.” Mike stopped them before he paused for a brief moment. “You guys are my team.” This time, Jenny did let out a laugh as everyone slowly reacted to his announcement. All exchanging glances and hiding eye rolls. “Anyway, I’ll be moving back in.” Mike continued. “The deputy director will be in contact with each one of your supervisors to work out the details…”

“Um, Mike, Hate to rain on your conceited parade, but...” Jenny leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “I’m a freelancer. Meaning I am my own supervisor. And I’m already working a case. So… my answer is no.” It was Johnny’s turn to hide a chuckle.

“The Bureau is willing to pay double your asking fee.” Mike told her. “We’re going to need your genius on this. And… I think the more important point being, we’re not asking.” Jenny bit down hard on her tongue, fuming with anger. She now understood why Paul was visibly upset when he called them into the living room. In her mind, she weighed the pros and cons of beating him up right then. “But it looks like for the next eight weeks, you guys are going to be working for me.”

The rest of the housemates wore their surprise and annoyance on their face. Silently, they slowly filtered out of the living room. Jenny slowly got to her feet, taking the bag of pretzels with her. “Let the fun begin.” She shrugged and made her way to her room. But as she walked past him, she muttered, “Rock star.”


	5. Professionalism

“Hey, Jenny.” Charlie stood over a sleeping Jenny tucked nicely in her bed. 

Jenny snorted awake when Charlie shook her. "What?” She pried open her eyes and squinted in the morning light that filled her room.

“Have you seen Paul?” Charlie asked her. She hadn’t seen him all morning and he wasn’t answering her phone calls or texts.

“What time is it?” Jenny groaned sleepily, trying to crane her neck to see her alarm clock.

“It’s time for you to tell me where your brother is, kiddo.” She insisted. "I can't find him anywhere and he's not answering his cell."

“Jesus, Charlie,” Her clock told her it was 8 in the morning. “I’m not my brother’s keeper. If he’s not banging you, then I don’t know. Now, can I go back to sleep?”

“No, not yet.” Johnny poked his head in her room, too.

“Oh, my god.” Jenny smashed her head against the pillow. “What do you people have against a good night’s sleep?”

“Mike has me working AFIS on his guys that tried to off him yesterday.” Johnny explained. “And I need your help setting up.”

“Johnny, are you not a capable adult who went to the Academy? Why do you need my help?”

“Because I forgot how to do it. Please, Jenny?” Jenny again groaned into her pillow.

“Johnny, you seen Paul this morning?” Charlie asked him.

He shook his head. “No, maybe Mikey has him on an errand or something, since we’re all his bitches now.” Charlie rolled her eyes and zoomed out of Jenny’s room.

Begrudgingly, Jenny dragged herself out of bed. Mike poked his head in the doorway. “Good. You’re up.”

“Don’t remind me.” She snapped, stretching out her arms and yawning. “Anyone else want to come in my room and destroy my slumber?”

“I’m gathering everyone downstairs in a bit to start to get to work on this buses case.” Mike informed them. “Can you be ready to go in ten minutes?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “I will need a large pot of coffee, but I guess.”

After Johnny and Mike left her alone, she was able to put on some clothes and throw her hair up in a messy bun. She had been spending most of the night looking up what she could about the auction site Sandy Harding was on. One thing about the dark web that she forgot was that everyone was really good about covering their tracks. She wished that she could work on it today, but Mike had already enlisted her help. Still pissed that he was throwing his authority in everyone’s face, Jenny had agreed to help out in the case. But it wasn’t because of the money. It was so her housemates wouldn’t have to suffer alone and hopefully, she could be around to talk some sense into Mike when he needed it.

Eventually, she was able to make her way downstairs. Paige, Mike, Zelanski, and Johnny were already sitting around the dining room table, pouring over case files. Johnny had a laptop in front of him, his brow furrowed as he tried to press various buttons.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Dale greeted her as she walked past him. He was sitting on the couch watching the news as he ate breakfast.

“Coffee?” She commanded.

“Right here, babe.” Paige gently pushed a mug across the table towards her. Jenny grabbed a hold of it like it was water in the middle of a hot desert and sipped greedily.

“Jakes, can you please turn it down?” Mike asked him, clearly annoyed at the volume of the television.

“Maybe you guys could debrief somewhere other than my living room.” He shot back at him, settling into the couch.

“Okay, so these guys,” Zelanski laid out pictures of the dead guys that attacked Mike the day before. “Are definitely not Caza.”

“Nope,” Johnny replied, pushing his laptop towards Jenny as she took a seat next to him. “AFIS got nothing, analysts can’t place ‘em, and DNA is a no-go. So I’m stuck.”

“Did anyone check facial recognition software?” Jenny asked, setting the mug down next to the computer. Everyone gave her a look. She slowly realized that they didn’t know exactly how to do that. “Remind me to teach a class later.” She grumbled as she worked away at the laptop.

“Okay, so maybe they’re too new to register.” Paige suggested.

“Or two mopes without priors answered an ad.” Dale shouted from the living room.

Mike shook his head. “They were very good at their jobs. You don’t send in mopes and expect any kind of success.”

Jakes nodded. “Good point.” Charlie came down the stairs, grabbed the remote from Jakes, and shut off the T.V.

“No one’s seen Briggs?” She asked, looking around the room. Everyone shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders. But Charlie saw Mike dip his head and pretend to be focused on his work. “No one?” She asked again, hoping Mike would come clean. He had to know something.

“Charlie, where’s the fire?” Jenny tried to calm her down. “He’s probably hitting the waves or something.”

“His truck isn’t outside.” She stated forcefully. “Where is he surfing? In Oregon? Someone tell me where Paul is.”

“We don’t know, Chuck,” Johnny told her again.

“He knows.” She pointed an accusatory finger at Mike, who looked up at the group guiltily.

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Mike?”

“You might want to sit down for this.” He started to say.

“I’m not sitting down, Mike.” Charlie snapped at him, leaning on the table. “Where is he?”

He hesitated before admitting, “Briggs is in Mexico.”

Jenny felt like he had punched her in the stomach. Why was he in Mexico? The last time he was there was when Jangles was filling him up with heroin. If he was in Mexico, it couldn’t have been for the right reasons. “He what?” Jenny slowly stood up and set her jaw, glaring down at Mike.

“You let him go?” Charlie was just as shocked and worried as Jenny. “Caza wants to kill him. What if he’s already dead, Mike?” Jenny felt her stomach turn at the very thought.

“Unless he’s already killed everyone already.” Johnny tried to suggest. Charlie hushed him and Jenny slapped him upside the head.

“This was his call.” Mike clarified, trying to be as calm as he could. Paul had asked him not to tell Charlie or Jenny. “He wouldn’t have gone if he didn’t think he would come back. It’s Briggs.” Jenny and Charlie took a moment to digest the reality, while he continued to talk. “Now, when we get the name of whoever came after me, I need you all to be ready to hit the ground running. You’ve already spoken to your supervisors, so it’s time to finish up what you’re working on or pass it on.”

“Good lord, I wish it was that simple, Mike.” Jenny seethed at him. “But that’s not even the important part at the moment. Because my brother is in belly of the goddamn beast and you seem more than okay with that.”

“Yeah,” Paige spoke up. “Seriously, Briggs reached out to Caza?”

Mike sighed, feeling the conversation getting away from him. “No, he reached out to people who…”

Johnny finished it for him. “Who reached out to Caza. But still.”

“Word came back that Caza wanted to talk, so he went.” Mike explained.

“Without back up?” Zelanski asked. “Just flying solo?”

“That’s the only way they’d do it.”

“For what?” Charlie demanded, finally finding her voice again.

Mike looked to her. “For a deal, okay? Caza’s punishment ends if they find out who came after me.”

“Oh, so it’s for you.” Charlie smiled bitterly. “He went down there for you, you little D.C. sucking son of a bitch!” She slammed her hand across the table and knocked Zelanski’s coffee mug against the wall, shattering it to pieces.

As she stormed off, he muttered. “I was actually still drinking that, but…”

“I can’t believe you, Mike.” Jenny pushed herself away from the table, letting her anger burn out of her eyes. “I can’t believe you just let him go like that. Were you even go to tell us?”

“He asked me not to. He knew you would try and stop him.”

“Damn straight we would have! Because that’s what happens when you care about someone’s safety.” She stomped over to him and jabbed in the chest, Johnny reading himself to tear her away in case she started attacking him. “I told you that I didn’t want to lose him again. If anything happens to my brother, Michael Warren, I swear to God, I will rip your throat out with my bare hands.” Jenny turned on her heels and marched up to her room, not really caring if she stepped on broken glassware or not.

>>>

Paul tried to take a deep breath as he prepared to answer this phone call. He had just turned on his phone, and he knew that she could be calling him. “Hey, sis.” He tried to greet happily.

“Good, you’re alive.” Jenny snapped, pacing her bedroom. “That will make it a lot easier for me to kill you.”

“So Warren spilled the beans, huh?” He sighed, as he got into his truck and started it up.

“What on Earth were you thinking, Paul? That we wouldn’t notice you were gone?”

“I’m sorry, Jenny. But I got a hit on…”

“No, I don’t want to hear your excuses, Paul. You need to get back home right now. It’ll be a lot easier for me to chew you out in person.”

He hesitated before telling her, “I sat down with Alfredo Armas, Jenn.”

Jenny slumped down on her bed. Alfredo Armas was the head of the Caza cartel. The top dog in their food chain. Paul might as well have said that he sat down with Godzilla. “You what?”

“We just had a chat like we were freaking old pals or something. We had cigars and drinks. It was incredible.”

“Wow. That’s an interesting word for completely stupid. You mean to tell me that you were just shooting the breeze with the man who ordered Jangles to put poison in you?”

“But he didn’t put out the hit on Mike.” He countered. “He told me that to my face.”

“Oh, and we’re supposed to just… take his word for it?”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Listen, I’m heading back stateside now. I’ll explain everything when I get there.”

“Good, I’ll be waiting for you. And you might want to update your will and testament before you get here.” Jenny hung up the phone and threw it across the room. She was relieved to know that Paul was alive for the moment, but was still more than furious that he went down to Mexico at all. It was like sending a recovering alcoholic into a liquor store. Paul had been doing so well the past few months; this just seemed like a huge step backward.

A knock on her door forced her out of her angry thoughts. Paige stood in her doorway, holding a laptop in her hands. “Hey,” She smiled timidly, trying to read the room. “Get a hold of Paul?”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “He’s alive, for the time being. I can’t guarantee his safety when he gets home, though.”

Paige figured that what the general vibe was. “Well, listen… I hate to ask you this now, but…”

“What do you need, Paige?” Jenny sighed. Maybe if she could focus her mind on something else for a while, she might be able to calm herself down a bit.

She skipped into the room and sat down next to her on the bed. “Okay, so I’m trying finish up this Finch case and I need to access footage of a security camera.”

Jenny took the laptop from her and opened it up. “From where?”

Paige smiled and nudged Jenny. “Thanks, hon. Um, from this gas station. On the corner of Brown and Elm.”

They were able to pull up the footage, after some clever maneuvering by Jenny, and bring up when Finch was on the camera. During the last meet with him, he had taken a phone call out of Paige’s earshot that she was trying to get access to. “Audio isn’t really my area of expertise.” Jenny told her as she tried to finagle her way with the camera’s audio settings.

They were able to hear his voice, but it was too quiet to make out what he was saying. “So what am I going to do? I need to know what this guy is talking about in order to close this case.” Paige rubbed her temples as she thought.

“Well, I would ask your supervisor about audio-enhancing programs. Because it’s clear there is audio on this camera, but he’s too far away to pick anything concrete up.”

As Paige got on the phone with her supervisor, Jenny kept trying to try different tricks to enhance the audio or find some way to figure out what he was saying. With her sole focus on that, she was able to forget about her anger towards Paul and Mike. Until…

“Hey.” Mike knocked on the door, clearly looking surprised when he saw Paige in the room too. He was hoping to find Jenny alone and try and explain himself. Jenny was now glaring at him, as the person on the phone who Paige was yelling at, hung up. “I can come back.”

“No, don’t come back.” Jenny muttered.

“No, don’t go.” Paige said louder. “I could use your help.”

“What’s the problem?” He asked, leaning in the doorway.

“The problem is,” Paige’s voice was high and stressed. “That I’ve been spending four months of my life trying to take down this n-bomb lab and I am this close to shutting it down.”

“So do it.” Mike shrugged, as Jenny silently continued to try and work on the computer, fumes radiating out of the top of her head.

“I got this guy, Benny Moreno, lined up to buy my partner’s benzyl cyanide. But I can’t rush it.”

“So just hand it off.”

“It’s my case, Mike. I can’t walk away from this and you know I can’t.”

“I don’t really think he cares.” Jenny quipped, still not looking up from the screen. “It’s all about that stardom, right Mikey?”

Mike shot her a look that she didn’t see. “Let me take a look.” He told Paige.

“Why?” Finally, Jenny stared back at him, trying to get a feel for what his “angle” was.

“Jenny, come on.” Paige took the computer from her hands. “I need every bit of help I can get.” She set the computer down on Jenny’s desk so they all could see as Mike took one more step into the room. He wanted to sit, but didn’t dare try to sit near Jenny. “This is Finch,” Paige explained, like a teacher to a class. “I think he’s setting up a meet with Moreno. But I can’t make it out. The audio is bad.”

“You can’t get anything from it?” Mike asked, getting closer to the computer.

“Not with the toys I’ve got.” Jenny replied.

“You FBI guys get all the goodies, and I’m shit out of luck.” Paige grumbled.

Mike looked to her. “Oh, so are you mad at me, too?”

“I’m not mad at you. I just… you show up and yank me 90 degrees in the opposite direction and I’m not ready. I don’t want to stop working on this case, Mike. I’m sorry, but I can’t. So, yeah, I guess I am mad at you.”

Jenny chuckled bitterly. “Oh, you mean, that you can’t just drop everything to help poor Mikey here? What will he ever do?” The sarcasm in her tone was biting.

Mike looked back at Jenny. “I’m not some heartless monster, Jenn.”

“You could have fooled me. Remind me again where my brother is?”

He sighed and looked to Paige. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? Why don’t you give me a copy of this and…”

“No, you know what? It’s fine.” She shook her head. “I got it, don’t worry about it.” She closed the computer and picked it up. “Thanks for trying, Jenny.” Paige quickly exited the room, leaving Jenny and Mike alone for one of the first few times since he had been back.

“If I say ‘I’m sorry’, will you believe me?” He asked her.

Jenny shook her head and stood up, folding her arms across her chest. “You know, she’s right. You keep walking around here like you own the joint and expect the world to bend to your will. Meanwhile, life is still happening. Never mind that we have cases that we care about and have worked on for a while. Tell me honestly, do you even care about anyone here?”

“You know I do.”

“Well, you sure as hell ain’t acting like it, kiddo.” She bit back. “Did you know that Charlie asked me the first night you were here why it was so weird between us? I couldn’t answer her then, but it is becoming more and more clear to me as time goes on.”

Mike glanced down at his feet for a moment, trying to steady himself, before looking back at her. “The guys who grabbed me and held a bag over my head only asked me one question, Jenny. The whole time, it was only one question. The bus line. They wanted to know if I knew a bus line. That is the first big break I’ve had in this case in months.”

“And so you’re going to make us your fall guys in order to prove your theory?” Jenny challenged. “Is being revered in the Bureau’s eyes that important to you? That you would be willing to let us burn in the process? You haven’t even asked me about the case I’m working on. Actually, you haven’t asked me anything. You didn’t even ask me to be on your task force. You demanded it.”

“Look, I’m sorry about Briggs going to Mexico. Truly, I am and you don’t have to believe me. But you know, with things being the way they are, I think it would do us both some good if we could show some professionalism in this…”

“Professionalism?!” She laughed bitterly. “You’re going to talk to me about professionalism. Really?” Mike closed his mouth and hung his head. Jenny shook her head and pointed to her door. “Get out of my room.”

“Jenny…”

“Get out of my room, Mike!” She repeated with force. Her tone alone was enough to get his feet moving. “You know, maybe when you start acting like you give a damn about literally anyone here, I’ll show you some professionalism.” She slammed the door behind him, with enough force to shake the entire house.


	6. Impulse

“You’re not going to believe this.” Grant walked up to Jenny excitedly, as she entered the conference room.

“By the sound of your voice from the phone call, you found something big, right?” Jenny was directed to sit down in one of the chairs in front of a computer screen. She looked and saw the image of someone’s front yard.

“Okay, so you know those cameras some people have set up on their front porches?” Shelby explained. “The ones that are supposed to watch out for those people that grab Amazon boxes and shit? Well, when I was canvasing around where Sandy’s car disappeared to, some lady gave me access to footage she got on the very night in question.”

Jenny sat up straight. “Does it show what happened?”

“Just watch.” Shelby pressed play as they both watched the screen intently. It was nighttime scene, making it difficult to see to clearly. Shelby suddenly pointed at the screen. “See that?”

Jenny squinted. The person’s front yard took up most of the camera’s field of vision, but far back from the camera, was the sidewalk and street. From where Shelby was pointing, she saw movement. It was a young looking girl with a backpack on her back. She was too far away to detect any discernible physical features or see what kind of backpack she wore. But one thing caught Jenny’s eye. “Is she limping?” The way the girl was walking was rather awkward like she was limping as she walked along the sidewalk. “Is that Sandy?”

“Keep watching.” Grant encouraged. Seconds later, a car pulls up to the girl. Jenny knew that car. It was Sandy Harding’s car. Sandy got out of the car and ran to help the limping girl, as it appeared to them. They talked for a bit before another car pulled up. The girls appeared to be talk to the driver, but Jenny couldn’t make out any features on the driver either. But she could tell that the car was a mini-van. Then, she watched as both girls climbed into the backseat, Sandy being sure to help the injured girl, and the van then driving off.

“Oh, my god.” Jenny gasped as she slumped back in the chair. “Shelby, you struck gold.”

“Yeah, I did.” The woman smiled widely. “We’ll have to see if we can enhance the picture and see if we can get a hit on facial recognition obviously, but we may have just saw the kidnapping of Sandy Harding.”

Jenny smiled for a moment, relishing in the small victory they had just achieved. “Okay, but let’s try and make sense of this.” She said, not wanting to get too ahead of themselves. “So, some girl was walking along the sidewalk and was clearly injured, so… Sandy pulled over and offered to help her.”

Grant nodded. “Which fits in with all the testimonials from friends and family. They all swear up and down that she loved to help anyone.”

“Then, a seemingly good Samaritan pulls up? Maybe they offer the girls a ride to the hospital. But why didn’t Sandy just take her car? Or call for help?”

“I don’t know that yet. It does look like they both got in the car willingly, so maybe it was someone either one of them knew. We'll have to analyze it further to be sure. But it’s a hell of a start.”

“Yeah,” She looked at the screen again. “And that’s where you found her car, right?”

“Yep. If she pulled over to help someone, that could explain why her keys were still in the ignition and no signs of car failure.”

“Wow, this is great, Shelbs. I’m going to pour over this footage and see if I can get anything to help narrow down who the driver was or the girl, but this is big. We may just get these bastards after all.”

>>>

Jenny raced home to try and get to work on analyzing the footage of Sandy Harding. When she pulled up to Graceland, she saw a familiar car. Paul’s beat up orange pick up truck. He was back from his impromptu trip to Mexico. She braced herself as she entered the house, eyes scanning every inch. “Paul?” She rounded the corner and saw her brother standing in the living room, looking right at her. Her feet stopped and she stared back at him.

“Hey, sis. I’m home.” He joked lightly.

She shook her head. it was a relief that he had made it back home safely, despite making a huge risk. But now that she knew he was safe, it was time for her to kick his ass. “You are a real piece of shit, you know that?”

“I know. I’m sorry for doing that to you, Jenn. But it had to be done.”

Jenny folded her arms across her chest. “It had to be done? So for the first time in your life, you decided to be a good little soldier and follow orders?”

“Mike didn’t make the call. I did. It was _my_ idea to reach out to Caza and it was _my_ idea to go meet with them. I just ran it by him and he agreed.”

“Why did you do that?” She demanded. “Why would you risk all this hard work you have been doing…”

“That’s exactly why I did it.” He pointed out. “Because I have a lot of clean-up work to do with the Bureau and I need a win very badly.”

Jenny rolled her eyes in utter disbelief. “Oh, dear God, you sound exactly like Mike.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what she had meant by that, so he decided to ignore it. Or at least bookmark it for later. “Caza is going to help us find out who put the hit on Mike. Don’t you want him to be safe?”

“Not exactly sure at the moment.” She admitted. “Can you… can you just promise me… the next time and I mean, the _next_ time, you decide to take an impulse vacation, you will at least tell me where you’re going before you go. If you remember, you promised me that you wouldn’t disappear again.”

Briggs nodded, thinking back to when he had dropped off the grid when the Bureau was after him for suspected murder of a federal agent. It had taken a real toll on Jenny, and he did not want to put her through that again. “I remember. I am sorry, Jenny.” She didn’t say anything. Instead, she fixated her gaze down to the floor. “Can I get a hug now?” He asked with a smile.

She scoffed. “You think you deserve a hug after the shit you just put me through today?”

He moved towards her slowly, arms outstretched. “I sat across the table from a very dangerous man today.”

“That was your own damn fault. You admitted it.” She tried to argue, but not moving away.

“Okay, how about this?” Paul stood in front of her, arms out at this sides. “How about I let you give me one blow to the stomach?” She gave him a look, silently asking him if he was serious or not. “One free smack. You’re right. I deserve it after OOF!” Her fist had come out of nowhere and knocked the wind clear out of him. Paul bent over and gasped for air.

“Oh, Paulie, you need to start working out again.” Jenny jokingly scolded him. She would be lying if she said that it didn't feel good to do that. “You’re getting a little soft around the middle.”

Once again, breath returned to him and he chuckled at his sister. She gave him a half-smile and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him tightly. “But here this, Paul Briggs,” Jenny whispered into his ear. “The next time you sneak off to Mexico, I’ll track you down and kill you myself.”

>>>

“Okay, wait, wait,” Johnny was pacing back and forth in the living room. The house had been gathered into the living room by Mike for an update on his buses case. Mike stood before them, Johnny paced behind the couch, and everyone else was crammed on the couch. Besides Jakes, who had been missing in action all day. “So bear with me while I figure all this out. So we find a photo, stuck in goat shit, mind you, in a warehouse that is supposed to be full of drugs, and we think the guy in that photo is the guy who tried to have you killed. That’s what you want me to believe?”

“That’s the jist of it, yeah.” Mike shrugged.

“And your source of information is Alfredo Armas?” Jenny added. “The head of the Caza cartel?”

“Yep.” Mike grabbed the case file sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

“So who’s the guy?” Paige asked.

“Carlos Solano.” Mike answered, passing around the photo for everyone to see. “Head of the Solano cartel.”

“Jesus, Mikey, you are popular.” Charlie mumbled as they all took a glance at the photo of the older man.

“That’s not Carlos Solano.” Johnny pointed at him. “Carlos Solano is a young dude.”

“Johnny’s right.” Paige nodded. “Carlos lives with his sister.”

Paul, who also had a case file in his hands, withdrew a photo and showed it them. “This is Carlos Solano Jr. His friend’s call him Carlito. His sister is Lucia but she is not part of the family business.” They all took turns looking over the photos of the Solano family, studying them closely.

“And this is their old man?” Charlie inquired, gesturing to the picture of the old man in her hand.

Mike nodded. “Carlos Senior runs the cartel out of Tecate, ships everything north via CalCoast buses to Carlito. That’s my theory anyway. Trust me on this part. It has to do with the motor-oil additive that we found in some of the heroin.”

“So what’s our play?” Paige probed.

“Do you know of any Solano dealers, street level?” Mike looked to the two DEA agents on the couch.

“Yeah,” Paige answered. “A few.”

“Well, we’re going to want to piece together a supply chain, from the buses to Carlito. Connect the money to the man.”

“And I’m guessing that’s where I come in.” Jenny supposed.

“Follow the money, right?”

“No, but that’s not going to work.” Johnny spoke up again. “The dude doesn’t handle the day to day. We’re not going to find him by talking to corner boys. Plus, most everything is in cash, so I’m not exactly sure how Jenny is going to be able to track that.”

“If we can get serial numbers, I can track it through that.” She suggested.

“Or maybe we’re embedded.” Mike looked to Charlie. “Feel like making a new boyfriend?”

Charlie stole a glance over at Briggs before turning back to Mike. “Yeah, I can do that.” When Briggs had returned back from Mexico, Charlie had not been happy with him. After having it out, she was still mad at him.

“Well, listen, Carlito is a… special kind of dangerous. So I want you running back up Johnny.” Jenny looked over at both Charlie and Johnny, hoping that the “special kind of dangerous” wasn’t going to lead to anything drastic.

“So,” Zelanski leaned forward and spoke finally. “You want me to run buses?”

“I want you to move out.” Mike stated bluntly. Most everyone was shocked by the directness, looking at Mike and the others. “Gonna need your room.”

“Mike, are you serious?” Jenny questioned.

“Yeah, I thought that was coming.” Zelanski looked to the floor. “So I got nothing to play here?”

“I want Jakes on buses.” Mike tried to offer him a sympathetic look, but it did not look sincere.

“Jakes moved out.” Johnny stated. Again, everyone reacted in shock. It was no secret that he had been gone a lot lately, but it wasn't exactly abnormal. He was a true lone wolf and didn't like to interact with people too often. But it never crossed anyone's mind that Jakes had just up and moved.

“He what?” Charlie stared intently at him.

“Yeah, he’s off field work, too.” Johnny’s gaze was pointed down and there was a certain sadness to his voice. He wasn’t playing. “He’s pushing a desk now.”

“Good lord, anything else we need to know?” Jenny asked sarcastically, reeling from the whole conversation.

“When did this happen?” Charlie prodded further.

“Probably when none of you were looking.” He muttered solemnly.

“Okay, well, Zelanski, you get Jakes’ room and spot on the investigation.” Mike told him, as Zelanski gave a sarcastic thumbs-up to him. “Any more questions?”

“Yeah, how did we miss Jakes?” Jenny’s question was more so directed at the couch than at Mike.

“Okay. Let’s get to work.” Mike dispersed everyone and went to his bulletin board that he had been creating for the case. Jenny saw Johnny try and disappear upstairs, so she hightailed it after him.

“Johnny, Johnny?” He was ignoring her, making a beeline for his room. When he made it to his room, he went to close the door. Luckily, Jenny was just quick enough to put her foot in to prevent the door from closing all the way. “Hey, don’t you start ignoring me now. Not about this. How long have you known about Dale moving out?”

Johnny gave up trying to prevent her from entering the room, so he went and collapsed on his bed. He laid on his back and stared up at the ceiling. “He told me yesterday. I caught him packing up his shit.”

“And what, no goodbyes or notices?” Jenny stood next to his bed, hands on her hips. “Why the hell would he just flake out on us?”

“He has a kid, Jenny.” He stated matter-of-factly.

Jenny paused and looked at him carefully. “How did you know that?”

He turned his head and gave her a confused look. “How did _you_ know that?”

“I… might have done some digging a while ago. He was looking into his girl’s new boyfriend and I got curious. When I told him I knew about them, though, he blew up at me. So I knew that I had to keep it on the down-low.”

Johnny brought his gaze back to the ceiling. “He told me he walked out on them because he thought he was toxic. So, he got a place and is getting a desk job to help be a good father to his son… Do you think we do good work here?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Jakes, before he left… he sorta said that we don’t really do good work anymore.”

She felt a wave of sympathy come over. She sat down at the foot of his bed with a sigh. “Jakes also said he’s a good driver.” She joked, trying to get him to smile and be his joyful self again. But he barely even flinched. “Look, Johnny, it’s no secret that Dale has never been a team player. I’m not saying it wasn’t wrong of him to bounce without giving us a heads-up first, but… I can see where he’s coming from. Family is important.” Her thoughts turned to Paul, thinking about all the things she would be willing to do for him.

“But aren’t we his family, too?” Johnny asked weakly.

Jenny patted his foot. “Of course we are. Dale just… doesn’t see that yet.”

“So, you’ll think he’ll come back?”

It would have been easy to lie to him, give him some hope just to pull him out of his funk. But she couldn’t. “I don’t know, J.T. The only thing we can do for him is to welcome him with open arms if he ever does. But I sure ain't going nowhere anytime soon, and I don't think anyone else is either.”

“Thanks, J.B.” He finally mustered up enough will power to summon a half-smile. It was the best he could do under the circumstances.

She smiled at him. “Do you want a kiss to make you feel better?”

He rolled his eyes and turned on his side, making his back face her. “Go away.”

“What? Just one kiss.” She teased, leaning over him and puckering her lips towards him.

Johnny gently kicked her off his bed. “You’re gross, Jenny.”

“But you love me anyway.”

>>>

“Just stay focused, Mike.” Jessica Foster had told him. Mike just got off the phone with his supervisor, informing her of all the updates on the case. Her words of advice still rang in his ear, as he ascended the stairs. It was easy for her to say. She only worked desk jobs; she had no real experience in the field. There were a lot of moving parts he had to consider with this case. All of his housemates were slowly developing a hatred for him; they were almost entirely insubordinate. And he was being pressured by D.C. to get the job done sooner rather than later.

As he made it to the second floor, he wandered towards his old room, making sure Zelanski was officially out. He stood in the doorway, as the memories the four walls held flashed before his eyes. It seemed like a lifetime ago, when he was last sleeping in that bed, or sitting at that desk. From the looks of things, it hadn’t changed much, just the covers on the bed. Mike secretly hoped that they were newly washed sheets, considering Zelanski’s reputation.

Mike started to put his stuff from his duffel bag he had carried up with him away, when he heard a knocking at the door. His back was facing it, and he remembered keeping the door open, so when he turned, he saw Jenny leaning in the doorway. “Hey,” She greeted coolly. One of the first few times she had approached since he got back where she didn’t look absolutely furious. “Back in your familiar surroundings, I see.”

“Yeah, it seems to not have changed much.” He glanced around, but then gestured to the bed. “Do you think Zelanski cleaned these sheets recently?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I think so. But I would still advise against bringing a black light anywhere near this vicinity.”

He smirked and nodded. That was some pretty solid advice. They both realized that was one of the first times they had joked with each other in a while. Jenny still lingered in the doorway, looking like she had a reason for her visit. “So… what’s up?”

Jenny took a breath as she tried to find the right words. “Well, I was, uh… talking to Paige. And she mentioned that you were able to help enhance her security footage and wrap up her Finch case.”

Mike shuffled his feet slightly. “Yes, I just called in a favor or two.” He said humbly.

“And…” She continued. “Paul confirmed your ‘it was his call’ statement from earlier. He told me that he was the one who came up with the idea to go to Mexico.”

They both stared at each other for a lingering moment. It was becoming a habit for them to silently communicate things they never wanted to say aloud. But Mike was also not really in the mood to beat around the bush. “So… is this your way of apologizing?”

Her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “Um, no. What do I have to apologize for?”

He scoffed in disbelief. “Well, maybe for lashing out at me?”

“You allowed Paul to go straight to the people that made him a junkie, so I think my reaction was justified.” She argued. “And actually, I think you got off easy.”

“Then what about all the times you’ve called me an asshole?”

“Because you have been. Do you want me to cite evidence?” She could hear her voice raise slightly, feeling him stoke the fire.

Mike placed his hands on his hips and grounded himself. “So, why did you come in here, then?”

“To try and extend an olive branch, you dick.” She spat at him. “We’ve both been at each other’s throats since you got back, so I was hoping to reach common ground where we could…”

“So that doesn’t involve apologizing?”

“No, it doesn’t.” She then muttered underneath her breath. “At least not from me.”

Despite her mutterings, Mike had heard her and rolled his eyes. “Oh, so it’s all on me, now?”

“Well, things were going just fine until you showed up.” She took a step towards him, arms crossed over her chest.

“Right,” He exasperated, taking another step towards her. “Because I’m the bad guy for wanting to work with you guys and asking you to take your jobs seriously?”

“God, you think you’re hot shit, don’t you? You think we should feel honored that we get to be your little puppets or pawns in your little chess game with the cartel.”

Mike could feel his anger rising in him. “That’s not what I think of you.”

“Really?” Jenny felt like a boiling teapot. “Well, that is the vibe you are sending out, Agent Warren. And it is one crystal clear signal.”

At this point, they were standing toe to toe, staring each other down as if lasers would shoot out of their corneas. “What is it with you, anyway, Jenny? You have been yelling at me constantly since I walked through that front door.”

“Because you’ve been behaving like an asshole since you walked through that door. We've been over this.”

“I don’t think that merits you scolding me like a child.”

“Then, maybe when you start acting like big boy, I’ll stop the yelling.”

He smiled ruefully at her. “You know, I helped out Paige today, because you were the one who said I needed to start acting like I care about someone, and then you would start treating me with professionalism.”

“I said, ‘maybe’ I would treat you with professionalism. And just because you do one decent thing, it doesn’t excuse everything else. You still have a lot of work to do before you're no longer an asshole."

Mike shook his head. "I guess there is no pleasing you, huh? Just keep raising your standards so I can fail and be yelled at."

"Do you really think I enjoy yelling at you all the time?”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think that way.”

“Well, I don’t, Mike. Believe me, I would love more than anything to have one civil conversation with you where I don’t have an overwhelming urge to rip your head off your shoulders.”

“And I would love to have one civil conversation with you where you don’t threaten to commit acts of violence against me.”

“I can’t help it! Because every time you open that goddamn stupid mouth of yours, it just makes me want to…”

Impulse is a funny thing. It’s your body reacting to stimuli before your brain even registering what you are doing or why you are doing it. Initially, it was to help cavemen to survive their environments, creating a “fight or flight” instinct. In modern times, it’s the same thing, but it’s evolved into something more… complicated. Mike never thought of himself as impulsive. For most of his life, he was careful and made calculated decisions. But Mike felt an impulse in that moment. His body reacted before his brain, which was not a frequent occurrence for him. But he felt his arms reach out to grab Jenny and smash his lips against hers. Jenny’s lips reacted impulsively to his, pushing herself closer to him, remembering his touch. The anger they still felt from their argument was still present, and burned deeply within them, but it was being expressed through sloppy and fervent kisses versus insults.

Mike kicked his door closed and pushed her up against it roughly, Jenny gasping from the blow. “You’re still an asshole.” She panted, as he nipped at her ear and neck. Some part of her wanted to stop, but the sensations coursing through her body spoke way louder. There was no stopping this train. Her fingers gripped a handful of his blonde hair and yanked forcefully, a moan escaping from him.

“So are you.” His lips found their way back to hers, desperately needing and craving them. It was like they couldn’t be close enough; the amount of time and distance that had passed since the last time they had done this showed at how they clung and grabbed for each other. The familiar shockwave passed between them, like a crack of thunder bellowing deep.


	7. Anew

Knocking. It sounded distant, like it was almost a dream. But it kept getting louder and louder. Mike started to slowly open his eyes, when he realized it wasn’t a dream. Knocking was really happening. Not on his door, but he could hear it the hallway.

“Hey, open up!” A voice hollered loud enough to startle Jenny awake, who was still entangled with Mike’s limbs. “I’m a goddamn federal agent!”

“What’s happening?” Jenny groaned, as he gently pushed them both to sit up. She suddenly became aware of what had happened the night before and was grateful for the distraction.

“It kinda sounds like Dale.” Mike guessed as he got up from his bed and grabbed some clothes to put on.

“Oh, God, he’s back?” Jenny yawned.

“Yo, Bates, open up!” Jakes shouted from the hall, accompanied with more frantic knocking.

“I got my gun, Dale!” They heard Zelanski holler back at him.

“Jesus Christ,” Jenny pushed herself out of bed and quickly started to get dressed herself. Figures the boys would be the ones stirring the pot this early in the morning.

“I’m going to go see what’s wrong.” Mike said, pulling a t-shirt over his head. He then looked over at her. “Um, can we not… you know…”

Jenny stopped and looked over at him. Same old Mike and Jenny, not talking about their relationship and hiding it from the house. “Yeah, don’t worry.” She nodded. “I’ll try to sneak back to my room when the coast is clear.”

“I’ll create a distraction for you.” He grabbed for the door handle.

“I don’t think you'll need to.” Jenny muttered as he opened the door slowly and hearing the shouting get louder. Jenny tried to hide herself, so no one saw her half-naked in Mike’s bedroom. As soon as he slipped into the hallway, she finished getting dressed and pressed her ear to the door, waiting for the right time.

She heard Johnny and Dale start yelling and pushing and shoving each other, Charlie and Paige leaving their rooms to stand in between them. Mike was calling for them to stand down. “It is way too early for this.” Paige yelled at them.

“I agree with the Chiquita,” Paul came storming out of his room. “Chill out!”

“What’s going on?” Mike asked.

“Who’s tanked?” Paul looked between Johnny and Dale. Johnny was standing being held back by Paige. Dale had fallen to the floor and was swaying back and forth like he was on a ship in the middle of a storm.

“Me.” He pointed to himself.

“Well, then take the high road, Johnny.” Paul tried to scold him.

“He headbutted me!” He defended himself.

“You did what?” Charlie turned and looked to Dale accusingly, placing her hands on her hips.

Mike helped Dale up to his feet, which was a struggle in itself, considering he was clearly two seconds away from passing out. “I leave for five minutes, and you give Bates my room?” He slurringly asked the group, his focus flying everywhere. “He’s probably ‘painting’ the walls as we speak.”

“Oh, yeah, I am now, asshole.” Zelanski called from the other side of the closed door.

“Hey, can it, Z!” Charlie pounded on the wall in anger. “You’re not helping!”

“Let’s just bring this downstairs,” Paul tried to say calmly, hoping to diffuse the situation.

“Agreed.” Paige chimed in. “Let’s go downstairs. We can sit down. We can talk about this.” Johnny took a step towards Dale, but she pushed him back forcefully.

“It’s my room, you know.” Charlie put an arm around Dale as he mumbled to her about just wanting to go to bed.

“I know, baby.” She rolled her eyes, but tried to be soothing enough so he wouldn’t get riled up again. Paige went to go help her drag him down the stairs.

As soon as they made their way downstairs, Mike knocked on the bedroom door. “Coast is clear, Zelanski. You can come out now.”

The door opened and out came a shirtless, boxer wearing Zelanski with his gun locked and loaded, and ready to shoot. Johnny groaned at him. “Were you actually going to shoot him?”

Bates lowered his weapon and faced him. “There’s two rules I don’t abide by: threatening me when I’m asleep and threatening me in my underwear.”

They all shook their heads and laughed. Zelanski and Johnny made their way downstairs to ice Johnny's head. Paul pointed towards Jenny’s door and asked Mike, “What do you think? Dead, indifferent?”

He only shrugged, careful not to let his face blush or give any sign of guilt. As Paul went downstairs, Mike lingered behind, glancing back towards his room. Jenny was poking her head out the door, scanning to make sure the coast was clear. Her eyes fell on him and he flashed her a reassuring wink. Jenny tried not to smile as she nodded and booked it to her room in a blink of an eye. Mike had to smile. Just another day in paradise.

Jenny quickly changed into fresh clothes and went downstairs. “Hey, I heard a commotion.” She greeted the members of the house that sat in the living room. She added a yawn to sell it further.

“A commotion?” Briggs chuckled at her. “Yeah, you can call it that.”

She tried to fake her surprise when she saw Jakes sitting on the couch. “Dale?” He waved at her, his eyes barely staying open.

“Yeah, Mr. Tough Guy here,” Charlie gestured toward the drunken man, as she slumped next to him. “Thought it would be a good idea to come home and yell at Bates to get out of his room.”

Zelanski walked out of the kitchen, holding a coffee mug and still only wearing his boxer shorts. “Dude, why don’t you put on some pants?” Jenny grimaced.

“Sorry, I’m all turned around.” He then fixed an angry gaze at Dale. “I had a rude awakening this morning.”

Johnny was sitting on the coffee table holding a frozen bag of peas to his head. “Yeah, and a headbutt wasn’t exactly what I wanted first thing this morning either.” Jenny rushed over to his side, and knelt down so she could take a look. She saw a small bruise forming, but that looked like the worst of it.

“You really didn’t hear any of that?” Paige asked her in disbelief.

Mike, who was also coming out of the kitchen, but holding a bottle of water, tried to steel his face. Jenny forced a shrug and maintained her voice to be as flat as could be. “I took a couple of hardcore sleeping pills last night. Been sleeping like garbage lately, so I tried them out. Pretty intense stuff.”

“DJ, why don’t we call you a cab?” Paul patted his friend on the shoulder. “Get you set up at a hotel…”

“No,” He batted his friend’s hand away. “I still live here.”

Eyes slowly turned towards Bates, who was now sitting on the couch. “I switched rooms literally yesterday.” He argued. Then he turned to Charlie. “Can I have your room since you and Paul are…”

“No.” Charlie shook her head, as Jenny hushed him. “I’m back in my room.” Everyone raised their eyebrows and looked between Charlie and Briggs. Had they called things off? Again?

“Well,” Briggs shrugged, trying to avoid anyone asking probing questions. “Now, we got too many corpses and not enough coffins.”

“Why don’t we just vote somebody off.” Johnny groaned, as Jenny pressed the bag of peas firmly against his head.

“Mike is the head of this task force, right?” Paige turned her focus to him.

Jenny looked over her shoulder at him, waiting for his answer. “No,” He shook his head. “This is a house thing. It’s not operational.”

“Actually,” Paul chimed in. “Graceland is the operation, Warren.”

He smiled sarcastically at the man. “Thanks.”

“Listen, Mike, it’s easy.” Johnny shifted his gaze to him. “Who do you like better? An awesome, freaking stand-up DEA agent or some sorry-ass drunk?”

“Johnny,” Jenny and Charlie scolded him at the same time.

“No, he’s right.” Dale was sinking in his seat, arms folded across his chest. His eyes were no longer open. “I’m drunk.”

“Jakes’ papers are in limbo, so Jakes is in limbo.” Mike thought aloud. “The room’s yours, Bates.” The man punched the air happily, as Johnny leaned over the coffee table to high-five him. “Until such a time as we’ve determined who stays here permanently.”

“You are wise and sage-like, Agent Warren.” Zelanski stood and bowed to him, before going upstairs to finally get changed. Johnny got up, too, annoyed at Jenny’s doting on him.

Dale let out a loud snore, as the rest of the house looked to him. He was now fully asleep, his head bowed and drool dripping from his mouth. “What about Mr. Sobriety?” Jenny asked.

Mike sighed at the sleeping drunk. Then, he looked to Briggs. “Think you can help me carry him up to the phone room?”

>>>

Jenny finished putting on her earrings and stood back to face the full-length mirror in her room. It was Greg Thompson’s court date, and she was determined to be there. But that meant digging out one of her old dresses. She looked over her navy-blue dress, smoothing out the creases. It hugged her figure nicely without being super tight, the hem line stopping just above her knees. The sleeves stopped at her shoulders, and she readjusted the deep-V neckline a tad. It wasn’t that deep of a neckline, but she still didn’t want to come off as trashy. After double checking her half pony her hair was tied into, Jenny grabbed her keys and purse and made her way out the bedroom door.

“Whoa,” She heard Mike say as she shut her door. When she turned, she could see Mike standing in front of his door, case file in hand and his feet paused in mid-step and his blue eyes roaming over her body. “What’s the occasion?”

Hiding a blush, she said, “I’ve got a court hearing I’m attending for the case I’m working on.” Without being able to stop herself, she felt her hands fidget over the dress again. “You don’t think it’s too much, do you?”

“No.” He answered almost too quickly, causing Jenny to smile. Mike cleared his throat and shook his head. “You look great.” He tried to state as matter-of-factly as he could.

Jenny bit her lip, almost feeling her insides squeal at the compliment. Since when did I turn into that girl? “So… make your decision on who you’re voting off the island yet?”

He rolled his eyes. “No.” They both started to walk down the stairs, being mindful of the close proximity of each other. “Any advice?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a tough call. On one hand, you have Jakes, who’s been here longer than any of us, and is a real Oscar the Grouch ninety percent of the time.”

“I thought you liked Jakes.”

“I do, but he’s basically like a street cat. He only stays because we give him food and a warm place to stay.”

He chuckled as they reached the first floor landing. A quick scan of their surroundings told them that no one else was around. His eyes kept peeking down at her dress. She didn’t wear dressed very often, once telling him that they were not ideal for a beachside residence unless you wanted to be Marilyn Monroe all the time. But the way this dress fit her… “And what about Bates?” He tore his gaze from her body and tried to focus on her eyes.

Jenny noticed him checking her out, and felt butterflies in her stomach, like a giggly school girl. “Well, he’s the newest, so you could go with the ‘last hired, first fired’ rule. But he’s a team player and dependable. Brutally honest…” In the back of her brain, she contemplated on whether or not to tell him about their one night stand a few months back.

“Well, that really clears things up, thanks.” Mike joked, clutching the file folder in his hands like a stress ball. _Stop looking at her like that_.

“You’re welcome!” She beamed up at him. "And besides, you're the one who wanted to be in charge. With great power comes great responsibility, you know."

He smirked. "So now I'm Spiderman?"

"You wish."

Finally, he wasn’t able to hold himself back anymore. “This dress is doing wonders for me.” He wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her close to him.

“Really, I can’t tell.” She said sarcastically, unable to stop smiling. He leaned in for a kiss, but she pulled away. “Ah-ah, you’ll ruin my lipstick.” She told him not convincingly at all.

“I don’t care.” Before she could protest, he brought his lips to hers. Unlike the heated passion they showed each other last night, this one was gentle and caring. They were reminded of how content and comforted they felt in each other’s presence. All the frustration and awkwardness that was between them before was gone. Now it was like no time had passed, Mike had never left, and they picked up right where they left off. Though, there was still a lot they still had to discuss. But neither one of them wanted to ruin the moment.

“Anyone seen my brown wedges?” They heard Paige from upstairs and the movement of her feet descending them. Jenny and Mike broke apart. Mike being sure to wipe his mouth and quickly opened his case file, and pretend to be super invested in it. Jenny looked up towards Paige, who stopped on the middle landing to look over her. “You look hot.”

“So do you.” Jenny nodded towards her clean white dress she wore. Mike glanced up at Paige and gave a quick nod before retreating into the living room, knowing that his face was bright red. “Are you going to court too?”

Paige shook her head and came the rest of the way down. “No, I’m playing the ‘Lady in White’ today, hoping to get in with one of the Solano dealers I know.”

“Well, good luck.” Jenny encouraged. “I’m heading to court to see if a man is guilty of kidnapping and murder and/or human trafficking.”

“Have fun.” Paige patted her on the shoulder and walked to the living room.

“Bye, Mikey.” Jenny waved in his direction, as he flashed her a wink. On her way out the door, she ran into Paul, who was carrying a box full of VHS tapes.

“Whoa there, sis.” Paul looked over her outfit. “Where you going dressed like that?”

“A convent.” She joked, reaching up and placing a light kiss on her brother’s cheek. “Hopefully, Mother Superior doesn’t accuse me of being a witch. Bye, guys!”

>>>

Shelby Grant and Jenny sat in the public seating of the courthouse, listening intently to the hearing of Greg Thompson. So far, there was no new information that they didn’t already know. Greg still maintained his story of buying Sandy Harding off a dark net auction site, and once getting her in the car, she had a seizure and died. Scared that he would get accused of her murder, he stashed her in the trunk of his car and was planning on dumping her in a riverbed, but was foiled once he got pulled over for a speeding ticket. The officer who had pulled him over was currently testifying about how he had discovered hair sticking out from the trunk.

“By the way,” Shelby leaned over and whispered to Jenny. She grabbed the briefcase next to her and withdrew a small stack of photos. “I had a few guys at the station try and enhance that porch footage we found the other day.” Jenny grabbed the photos from her friend to look them over. “They weren’t able to get much. We know the driver had short hair, which most likely means it was a man, but could also be a woman.”

Jenny studied the photos closely. The images were slightly distorted from being blown up so much, so she could see why no one could really make out any physical features. The last photo was a still of the two girls climbing into the mini-van’s backseat, their backs were towards the camera. It was a black and white photo, so she couldn’t make out the color, but the backpack the injured girl was wearing caught her eye. “What is that design?” She asked Grant, trying to squint at the photo. With it being an extreme closeup, the picture quality was pretty poor.

“We don’t know.” Grant whispered back. “I have Ron and Garrett trying to compare it to other backpacks back at the station.” Jenny bit her inner cheek in thought. Something about it almost appeared child-like. The girl who wore it was young, but more like a teenager. Most teenage girls abhor anything that appears childish. But a deep feeling in her stomach told her that it was important.


	8. Kindle

“Holy shit, what happened?” Jenny asked, seeing blood all over Paige’s white dress. She had just returned home from a long day in court as Paige was also returning home from the hospital. They stood in the entryway of Graceland.

“Relax, Jenny, I’ll live.” Paige held up her wrapped-up hand for Jenny to look over it. “That Solano dealer I met with today? Well, Mike tried to push for me to buy more coke off him and he got spooked. Stabbed me in the hand when I tried to grab the money.”

“Are you okay?” She asked, worry flowing through her veins.

“Doctors say there was no major nerve damage. I’ll have limited mobility for a bit, but it will heal.” She replied.

"I'm sorry." Jenny offered.

"No, don't be. It wasn't your fault." The bitterness in her tone was unmistakable.

“Oh, my God.” Mike gasped. He had just happened to be coming down the stairs when he saw the red stains on Paige’s white dress and her wrapped-up hand. “What happened?”

“Will everyone stop acting like I’m terminal?” Paige snapped as she ascended the stairs. All she wanted was to take a nice relaxing bubble bath and decompress after the day she had. Mike and Jenny followed close behind her. “I told you that Top wouldn’t like it if I asked for more coke, Mike. This is what happens when you don't listen to me.”

“He did that because you pushed for more?” A twinge of guilt piercing his stomach.

“Yeah, Paul and I tried to smooth him over, but he was pretty jumpy. So I think that means you owe me an apology.”

“Listen, I am sorry, okay?” They had reached the second floor and stood in a small circle. Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s just… D.C. is such a result-oriented place and they are getting frustrated that things are taking too long.”

“Oh, good Lord, Mike.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “That’s nothing new. Remember, these are desk jockeys who barely see the outside of a cubicle. Don’t let them pressure you to do things like this. What if Paige had actually…”

“The shipment comes in Sunday.” Paige said with a roll of her eyes.

Mike and Jenny looked at her incredulously. “You got it?”

“I got it.” Paige shrugged nonchalantly.

“You’re incredible, Paige.”

“I know. But you are still an asshole.” She made a show of waving her hand in his face and stomped off to the bathroom, ready for a nice long soak in the tub and away from Mike.

“Okay, so Sunday.” Mike said almost to himself, as he made his way to his room. “I can work with Sunday.” A million thoughts flooded his brain at once.

Jenny followed him. “Are you going to acknowledge that you almost got Paige killed or are we already past that?” She demanded.

He looked at her as if he had forgotten she was there. “I said I was sorry. What more do you want?”

“How about using that big ol’ brain of yours to think through scenarios before sending one of our own into a den of lions?” She placed her hands on her hips and planted her feet when they had finally made their way to Mike’s bedroom. “First, Paul, now, Paige. It’s getting too slippery.”

Mike slumped down into his desk chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m trying, Jenn. Believe or not, I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me. It’s just… the Bureau is getting restless.”

She shrugged. “So tell them to shove it up their ass. You’re in the field, they aren’t.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at her tenacity. “I don’t suppose you would want to talk to them for me?”

Jenny laughed, as she slipped off her heels, her feet thanking her when they were finally flat on the ground again. “I’m not going to fight your battles for you, Mike. Even though I certainly could. But you are a big boy. And you worked there for a while, so you can work your magic on them.”

He smiled at her, noticing she was still wearing the navy-blue dress from earlier. “So how was court?”

“Ugh, long and boring.” She groaned as she sat down on his bed to rub her feet. “I’m so glad I never wanted to be a lawyer. We complain of all the case files we have to go through on a given basis. Think about all the paperwork for that job.”

“Is it too late to ask about your investigation?” He asked, recalling when she yelled at him for not asking about it.

She sighed deeply. “Truthfully, it’s a long story that I don’t really have the strength or patience to get into right now. But I will. I promise.”

“Well, will you at least tell me that you can start helping me with this buses thing?”

“I _am_ ready, Mike. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what to do. You are the man in charge after all.”

Mike got up from his chair and stood in front of her, trying to be as authoritative as possible. “Are you willing to follow orders, though? No questions asked?”

Jenny raised a teasing eyebrow at him, sensing the challenge he was laying down. She stood up so she was standing toe-to-toe with him, painting a mischievous look over her face. “I’ve always been a little bit of rebel, so no guarantees.” Jenny realized that his door was still open and went to close it, Mike staring at her the whole time. “So if you like my dress so much…” She leaned against the now closed door. “Would you like to help me out of it?”

>>>

“So you got nothing?” Mike asked frustratedly. Jenny and Mike had found their way to the phone room, checking in on Jakes’ task of reviewing the security tapes of the CalCoast bus line. As part of his penance with the house campaign, after Jakes had woken everyone up in a drunken tirade, threatened Bates, and headbutted Johnny. This involved him watching hours of footage recorded on VHS tapes. It provided him the perfect amount of time to cool down.

“Nothing bus-related.” Jakes said vaguely.

Mike and Jenny’s interests peaked. “Meaning?”

The man shrugged nonchalantly. “I could show you the tinker bells.” He rewound a tape and pressed play, as Mike and Jenny leaned in closer to see the footage. They could see a crowded bus station full of all sorts of people milling about.

“Which one is Tinker Bell?” Mike asked, eyes scanning all over the screen. There were so many people it was really hard to make out any discernible person.

“Wait for it…” Dale held a finger over the pause button for a moment, before pressing it. “Boom. You see that?” He pointed to the screen. They could see a pink backpack on a teenage girl, who’s back was facing the camera, giving them the perfect view of the backpack. Even though she was far away from the camera, they could make out a fairy design.

“That’s like a toddler’s backpack.” Jenny commented.

“Well, L.A. is full of misguided fashion statements.” Mike joked.

She nudged him, as she examined the image closer. There was something that was compelling about it. But then, Jenny felt like she was struck by lightning. “Hold up, don’t move.” She ran out of the room as the two men gave each other confused looks. Approximately a minute later, Jenny came back in holding a photograph.

“What’s going on, Jenn?” Mike questioned with a lot of concern.

Jenny leaned over Dale’s shoulder and held up the photo in her hand next to the screen, comparing between the two. It was one of the stills Shelby Grant had given her in court from the front porch footage they believed was the kidnapping of Sandy Harding. This particular one she held up was the image of the two girls climbing into the back seat of the van with their backs to the camera. Jenny smiled. “Gentlemen, spot the difference between these two pictures.”

The two of them looked from the photo, to the screen and back. The backpack on the injured girl in the photo, though slightly distorted, had the exact same design as the girl in the video. “They’re the same.” Mike gulped. “But wait, Jakes, you said you had tinker bells?”

Jakes nodded and pressed the fast forward button, as Jenny placed the photo on the table in front of them. She couldn’t believe her luck at that moment. “There.” Jakes pressed play and they all saw a girl wearing the same backpack.

“Wait, but that’s a different girl.” He commented, noticing her black hair versus the other girl’s red hair.

“But it’s all the same backpack.” Jenny confirmed, glancing at the photo. “And you know what? I think there’s a bus station just up the street from where this was captured.” She pointed to the photo and tried to picture the large map she had tacked up in her make-shift office.

“What bus is this?” Mike asked Jakes, feeling excited.

“Welcome to the Stone Age.” Jakes shrugged. “These time codes are all over the map, so I can’t place any particular time with any particular line.”

“Okay, but do we really think that these white girls are tied with the Solano cartel?” Mike tried to reason.

“Cartels like to label their mules.” Jenny reminded him. “Red hat, blue shirt, pink backpack. Easy to spot in a crowd.”

“Yeah, but those aren’t drug mules.” Jakes spoke up. “See, you guys are too caught up in the whole drug business to see outside of it. I’m in ICE, right? You don’t use ass like that to haul product. Ass like that _is_ the product.” The girls in the videos did seem conventionally pretty from what they could tell.

“Oh, my god.” Jenny held a hand over her mouth. “You’re right, Dale. That all makes sense.” She looked down at the photo again with a smile. She couldn’t wait to tell Grant about this big break. “Well, Agent Warren, ready to hear about my investigation?”

>>>

Jenny knocked on Paige’s door, feeling a little nervous. When Paige opened the door, she offered a weak smile. “Hey, how’s the hand?”

“Still sore. But like I said, I’ll live. Do you wanna come in?”

“No, thanks. I actually have to run soon. But I have a favor to ask you.”

Paige leaned against her door. “Is it to help Mike?”

“He really is sorry for almost costing you a hand. He’s just trying…”

“Oh, my god.” She regarded her friend carefully. “You’re sleeping together again, aren’t you?”

Jenny tried to play innocent. “What makes you say that?”

Paige raised an eyebrow at her. “A couple days ago, you were screaming at him and calling him an asshole and now you’re defending him?”

 _Dammit, we gotta be more careful_. “Look, this isn’t about Mike, okay?” She insisted. “Mike asked me to do this thing, but I’ve got prior engagements, so I need your help.”

“What do you want?”

“Jakes discovered what Carlito is bussing in. Girls.” She produced a photo of the pink backpack from her pocket and held it out to Paige, who took the photo and looked it over.

“Drug mules?”

“Possibly, but Jakes has a strong impression that they’re more than just transportation. He thinks the girls themselves are also the merchandise.”

Paige's stomach dropped. “Jesus.”

“Yeah. Anyway, Mike asked me and Jakes to stake out the CalCoast bus station to see if we could spot any of these backpacks, but…”

“Why can’t Jakes just do it on his own?” Paige gave Jenny back the photograph.

Jenny bit her lip. “He doesn’t trust him after the stunt he pulled with Z the other day. He’s been on the sauce a lot, and Mike doesn’t want to do anything that will compromise the investigation. Plus, you think I would send someone after potential sex traffickers alone, without backup?”

Paige crossed her arms over her chest. “Why me, then?”

“Well, Johnny and Charlie are working the Carlito angle, while Mike oversees it. Zelanski’s been MIA since Jakes, and frankly… I don’t trust Paul and Jakes together.” She whispered that last part, hoping that her brother wasn’t around. The last time Paul and Jakes worked together was when Jakes helped Paul disappear from the Bureau and Graceland. “Plus, you’ve worked with mules before, right?”

“And what about you? What’s this prior engagement?”

“Turns out there’s a gigantic overlap between the case I’m working on and Mike’s bus theory. I need to go to my partner down at the precinct with all this new info, and hopefully convince her to stay on it with me.” Paige was still hesitant, absentmindedly rubbing her injured hand. “Look, Paige.” Jenny placed a hand on hers. “I know that Mike’s been a lot to handle lately. Believe me. But this is bigger than even he thought it would be. We’re talking about sex trafficking. These girls can’t be more than 16 years old and they’re being auctioned off like cattle. You don’t have to do anything; you can just wait until you spot the backpack and call in the cavalry. And you don’t have to do this for Mike. But please do it for me?”

Paige looked at Jenny for a long silent moment. Trying to find the courage to refuse her. The two of them had basically been like sisters ever since they met. “Fine. But only for you.” She agreed.

>>>

Zelanski was able to sneak out of Graceland without anyone seeing him. Either everyone was out or cooked up in their rooms. But the house was clear, so Zelanski found his way out of the house. It’s better this way, he thought. Still, he felt sad about him having to leave Graceland. He wasn’t surprised when Mike had picked Jakes over him. After all, they had more of a history. Mike had tried to talk him into saying goodbye to everyone, especially Johnny. But he knew that a clean break was best.

He shuffled his way to his car, dragging his duffel bags over his shoulder, taking one last glance at the house behind him. As he neared his car, he saw a familiar figure leaning against it. Jenny. Even though she was wearing sunglasses, he knew that she was glaring right at him. “Hey, Jenn.” He offered a sheepish smile.

“Don’t pull that shit with me.” She snapped at him. When she had asked Paige to go with Jakes to scope out the buses, she hadn’t completely lied. Jenny had called Grant to fill her in on all the new developments in their case. But she didn’t need to go in person and tell her that. Her main priority was to scope out for Zelanski and make sure he didn’t slip out unnoticed.

He dropped the duffel bag onto the concrete and shoved his hands in his pockets. “How did you know? Did Mike tell you?”

“No. After Jakes tried to slip out of the house without warning, I put an alert on the rest of you letting me know anytime someone put in for a transfer.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you.” Zelanski apologized, like a kid who just got in trouble and was told by his mother to apologize. “I’m just… not good with goodbyes.”

“So you decide to Irish goodbye us?” She placed her hands on her hips. “You might not have been here that long, Z, but we do care about you.”

“Mike doesn’t.” He replied in his usual blunt manner.

Jenny bit down on her lip. It was true that the two of them had never really clicked. “He just doesn’t know you.”

“He wanted me out since he got here, Jenny. I knew it, you knew it. We both know I’ve been on borrowed time. But I’m needed down in El Paso, so maybe I’ll have more luck there.” He picked up the duffel bag and swung it into his back seat.

“What about Johnny?” Jenny asked him.

Her question seemed to pause him in mid-movement. “What about him?”

“Johnny was almost suicidal when Jakes bounced. How do you think he’s going to react to this?”

“He’s busy working the Solano case. He doesn’t need me clouding his head.”

“Zelanski, stop.” She commanded. He turned to face her, now leaning against his car as she scolded him. “You need to stop acting like you’re a burden to anyone here. You are our friend. And we deserve to say our goodbyes.”

Bates shuffled his feet and sighed. “You still have feelings for him, don’t you?”

Jenny was clearly taken aback by this. “What?”

“Mike. I can see it when you look at him. I knew it even back when you first told me about him. Truth is, I’ve kind of always been jealous of Mike.”

She felt her walls waver slightly, so she tried to build them back up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw you two.” He admitted. “The other night, I heard yelling and thought there was going to be a blood bath, but when I poked my head into the hallway, I saw you with him.” Jenny felt warm with embarrassment, recalling her and Mike's first night together before being rudely awakened by a drunken Jakes. “Before he closed the door, I could see the chemistry between you two. I realized you would never feel that way about me.”

“Z…”

“No, don’t give me your sympathy, Jenn. That’s your guy…” He gently brushed her hair out of her face. “And I'm not. And it's okay. You’re happier with him.”

Jenny didn’t know if there were any words to offer him at that moment. She had never really given too much thought to Zelanski after their one night. Even then, she thought it was just a “lonely hearts” thing, where they were two adults just wanting some attention. But apparently, it was more than that for him. All she could do was wrap her arms around his neck, having to stand on her tip-toes a little, and offer a genuine hug. He hugged her back, close enough that she could feel his heartbeat. “I’m sorry.” She whispered to him.

“Me, too.” He said, forcing himself to let go of her. She allowed him to get into the driver’s seat and start the car.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” Jenny leaned on the door when he drew the window down.

Zelanski reached into the duffel bag behind him and pulled out a toy robot. Jenny smiled as she remembered his infatuation with robots. “They’re going to dominate us one day,” He had told the house. “If I learned anything from watching any sci-fi movies, it’s that these guys are the superior entities.” When asked why he collected toy ones, he simply shrugged and told them that he thought that if the robots did take over one day, maybe they would see his collection as a shrine and spare his life. “Will you give this to Johnny?” He asked her, holding out the robot in his hand.

“No. that’s yours…”

“If I’m not giving him a verbal goodbye, maybe this can be a good substitute.”

Jenny hesitated, but took the toy from him. She waved as he pulled out of the driveway and disappeared around the corner. “Bye, Wayne.”

>>>

“So, why did you send Paige with Jakes again?” Mike asked Jenny, as he drove them to a location Jakes had texted him. Jakes and Paige had been staking out the CalCoast bus station all day when they had found a girl with a pink backpack, identical to the other girl’s in the security footage. Dale had texted Mike that they had found something big.

“Because she’s worked with drug mules before.” Jenny explained, her tone a little downtrodden. Ever since her goodbye from Zelanski earlier, and Jenny placing the robot he gave to Johnny in Johnny’s room before they left, she had been unable to get it off her mind. “I figured she could pick up on things more than I could.”

“Yeah, but she kinda isn’t the biggest fan of me at the moment.” He recalled their conversation from when her hand was stabbed by Solano dealer. “How did you convince her?”

“I told her it was my call, which it was.”

“And why didn’t you go?”

“Because… I had things to do.”

“Things?”

“Yeah, Mike. Things.” She snapped at him, feeling instant regret. “Can I ask you a question?” She turned her head to face him, his eyes still focused on the road. “Why did you choose Jakes over Zelanski?”

Mike knew this was going to come up eventually. “I already had DEA agents, but Jakes was my only Customs guy. It just made sense from a tactical standpoint. But Bates told me he didn’t want anyone to know.”

“When Jakes tried to disappear the other day, I got spooked. So I put an alert on everyone in the house, to make sure that if anyone else had put in for a transfer, at least I would know about it. Z’s went through this morning.” She explained.

“Do you think I should have gone with him instead of Jakes?”

“I don’t know.” She rested her head against the headrest, and watched the streetlights fly past them. In truth, she didn’t really want either of them to leave. They were both completely different people, but they seemed so vital to Graceland. She tried to think back to all the times with Zelanski. Had she really missed all the signs that he was into her? It never crossed her mind after catching him in the act during an op. Was she really that clueless? “Can I ask you another question?” She finally said aloud, trying to channel his bluntness. “Did you choose Jakes over Zelanski because of some ‘marking your territory’ bullshit?”

He was not expecting that question. He bit his lip and said, “No…”

“But did it have any influence over your decision?” She pressed. He didn’t answer, which was plenty for her. “Christ, Mike.”

“Look, he was fawning over you like a love-sick puppy.” He tried to explain himself. “No, it wasn’t the main thing that helped me make my final decision, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t weigh on my mind.”

“I’m not yours to claim, Mike.” Jenny reprimanded him. “You do not get to be possessive over me just because we’re fooling around again.”

He couldn’t help but feel defensive by her choice of words. “Fooling around? Is that we’re doing?”

“Well, what would you call it, then?” She challenged. Again, he didn’t answer. A rueful chuckle escaped her. “We never were good at the whole defining what we are thing.”

Silence fell over the car again. “Did you like him?” He dared to ask.

“What?”

“Zelanski. Did you like him?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my god.”

“It’s an honest question.”

“I never took you for the jealous type, Mike.” By then, they had pulled up to where Jakes was, leaning against his car in an industrial part of town. Neither of them could tell if they were grateful for the interruption or bitter.

“Please, tell me some good news.” Mike exhaled, as they both exited the car.

“Well, we got something.” Jakes told them, as he gestured across the street. They all looked to see a garage with CalCoast buses parked in front of it. “Bus 118 drops all of its passengers off and ends up here. Large body garage, under the hood stuff. S.I.C. eight threes and I.S.L. nines mainly.” Both Mike and Jenny shot him impressed looks. Jakes shrugged. “I’m an engine guy.”

“Is it still in there?” Jenny asked.

“Goes in, comes out in 30 minutes.” He replied.

“Scheduled maintenance?” Mike crossed his arms, as he tried to strategize. This was the closest he had come to nailing down a bus line in his entire investigation.

“Called CalCoast, not due until next week.”

“Man, I’ve been tracking this son of a bitch down for weeks.” Mike shook his head. “But we got him.”

Jenny took a look around, noticing a key player was missing. “Hey, Jakes, where’s Paige?”

“Sylmar.” Jakes started walking back to the car.

“What’s in Sylmar?”

“A human being.”

Mike finally snapped out of his quick trance. “So wait, she made contact with a tinker bell?”

“Placed a tracker in her pack, and is trying to find her.”

Jenny shot him a look. “You let her go alone? These are sex traffickers, Dale.”

He held up his hands innocently. “I am not her babysitter, Jennifer. You might have sent her to babysit me, but someone had to be here to show our fearless leader the bus.” 

Meanwhile, Paige was in Sylmar, having found the backpack the girl she had talked to that day was wearing. Lina. She grabbed the backpack from the garbage can where it sat, seeing the fairy light up, as the phone Paige had hidden in there earlier to track Lina lit up as she called it. Lina was gone. Paige’s stomach hit the ground with a thump, feeling somewhat responsible for the poor Russian girl’s sudden disappearance.


	9. Stir

“My paycheck in from Bruce yet?” Jenny asked Johnny as she entered the kitchen. He was sorting through the mail, shoulders sagging. The general kid-like energy he usually exuded was nonexistent, making Jenny feel nothing but sympathy for him. With Zelanski moving out, and the intensity of his meet with Carlito Solano the other day, he was not himself.

“No, just some credit card shit.” He brushed a couple of envelopes towards her, not looking up at her.

She reached out and rubbed his arm to comfort him. “Hey, Z didn’t leave because of you.” It was only the day after Zelanski had left, but Jenny didn't like how bummed out he was acting.

“No, he left because of your boy toy.” He bitterly shot at her as he peeked his head over his shoulder. Mike and Paige were just sitting down at the dining table going over the buses case, clearly not hearing them.

“He’s not…” Jenny had to stop herself. She wanted to say that Mike wasn’t her “boy toy” but then… what was he? Besides, that wasn’t going to help Johnny. "It wasn't all Mike's fault okay?"

"Well, we were doing just fine until he showed up."

“Z wanted to say goodbye, but he said that…”

“Wait, wait, you talked to him?” Johnny stared at her in disbelief.

 _Shit._ “Yeah, I caught him on his way out.”

“Oh, I get it.” Johnny started to straighten up. “So, you were important to him than me? I guess, hoes before bros, right?”

“Johnny.” But he was not listening to her. "Johnny!" He stomped up the stairs, ignoring her calls. Sure, the two of them had bickered before and had their occasional spats. But this was different. He was genuinely angry at her, and Jenny didn’t know what to do. She had left the robot Zelanski had gifted him in Johnny's room, but that wasn't enough apparently. Maybe she should have forced Wayne to say goodbye to Johnny, despite what he thought. But it was no use regretting what had already happened. The question was now: how was she going to fix it?

“Everything okay?” She heard Mike say. Jenny turned and saw both Paige and Mike looking at her with equal amount of concern.

She forced herself to shrug it off and smile. “Yeah. You know, it’s just his time of the month. So what are you guys working on?” Jenny slid into one of the chairs, eager to focus on anything else.

Mike wanted to offer her some comfort, but knew that he tried, she would last out at him. Plus, Paige was right there, and he was not about to make the situation awkward. So he turned his focus back to the work at hand. “Paige is translating the letter that girl gave her…” 

“That girl’s name is Lina.” Paige snapped, glancing up from the paper she wrote on.

“Her letter telling you anything?” Jenny asked.

Paige sighed and set the pencil down, resting her elbows on the table. “She has a family, Jenn. Back home. She was trying to make a better life for them. Those bastards took that from her.” Jenny felt for her, knowing that Sandy fell in with the same guys. It was despicable.

“You said, she swallowed balloons, right?” Mike questioned, not letting the emotion getting to him.

Paige nodded solemnly. “So was Jakes right?” Jenny asked her. “Do you think these girls are just drug mules or something more?”

“It has to be more than that. Lina said they were looking for dancers and models. Pretty is not a prerequisite for muling.”

“But sex trade?” It was still a little hard for Mike to grapple with.

“My girl, Sandy Harding, was nabbed with a girl with an tinker bell backpack,” Jenny pointed out to him. “We found Sandy on an auction site not long after. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch.”

Paige sat up a little straighter. “Can we get on the site to see if Lina’s on there?”

Jenny hung her head. “Bad news, site was taken down.”

“You’re kidding.” She felt the last droplets of hope wither away.

Mike was now leaning forward with interest, too. “Why did they do that?”

“Look, there are two things I know to be true about the dark web: everyone is really good about covering their tracks and they are all annoyingly paranoid. If they ever feel the slightest bit of pressure, they flake out.”

"Pressure from who?"

Jenny bit her lip. "It could have been from me poking around. Or it could have been the ten other officers and agents I've given the site to."

“So what does that mean for Lina?” Paige pushed. “Did they dump her and skip town?”

“Not necessarily. Just because that site was taken down doesn’t exactly mean they gave up the life of trafficking and joined a convent. More than likely, they moved the site to a different web address.”

“Well, great,” Mike tried offer some comfort for Paige, who was clearly upset by this new information. “Then, we can find that new address and use that to get a location. Right?”

Jenny made a face. “See, that’s the thing. With something as big as sex trade, you can’t just google it. It's not public domain. And it's carefully hidden by hardcore encryption software. You need to be invited and only the invited get the web address. If I try and get in through a back door, they could move the site again. Plus, not to be more of a downer, but unfortunately, there’s kind of a lot sites like these. It’ll be like finding a needle in haystack.”

Paige’s brain ran wildly. “Okay, then, give me a team.” She addressed Mike. “I can go up to Sylmar and kick some doors down. See if I can find anyone with the site. Or someone who knows where they’re keeping these girls.”

“That’s a great idea, actually,” Jenny nodded. “And I love the image of you kicking in doors.”

“But, how does this connect with Solano?” Mike asked them.

Jenny gave him a look. “What, are you kidding? They’re riding your precious bus line. What more do you want?”

“That’s purely circumstantial. Just because they are using the bus Solano uses doesn’t mean they are connected _with_ Solano. We’ve only got him on drug smuggling, not human trafficking.”

“Let me prove it then.” Paige stated, setting her jaw. “I can do it.”

Mike looked at her, hesitating a little. “Connect this to Solano. And then I’ll give you a team.”

For the first time that day, Paige smiled brightly. "Thanks, Mikey." She leapt up and ruffled Mike’s hair, who grunted his disapproval. As she sped out of the room eager to start her investigation, Jenny and Mike were left alone. First time since their talk about Mike being jealous of Zelanski. Both of them looked down at the table in front of them, pretending to be interested in the many different files Mike had spread out.

Mike was no longer able to stand the silence. “Look, Jenny. I’m sorry.”

“Mike,” She brushed her back out of her face. “I slept with Zelanski.”

He couldn’t help but wear his surprise plainly on his face. “You did?”

“It was only one night a couple months back, when I was feeling particularly down. And it didn’t last very long, because the very next day is when I caught him… well, you know... 'bates-ing'. And I truly didn’t know that how he felt about me until yesterday when he left. And the reason why I’m telling you this is because… it wasn’t just Zelanski. I’ve been with other guys; you haven’t been my one and only. But the fact of the matter is... we were not a couple. We left things pretty open ended. So yeah, there were other guys. And I need to now if that is a problem for you.” Her stare was intense. It was something that he admired and also hated about her.

Mike shook his head. “It’s not. I know I had no right and… And I know that we weren't... I’m sorry.” He reached across and grabbed her hand, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “I think I’ve been letting the case go straight to my head.”

“You think?” She jabbed at him, causing him to chuckle. Jenny could feel her heart beat a little faster, feeling grateful that he wasn't going to be possessive. But... it still brought up an interesting thought. “And you know… if you were with anyone, I wouldn’t be mad.”

Guilt stabbed him in the gut. Jessica. She had never been his girlfriend, but they had fooled around off and on. And technically speaking, Jessica still believed they were, but it was put on hold while he was in California. If he told Jessica about Jenny, would she understand? Or would she compromise everything he has worked so hard for? If he told Jenny about Jessica, would she really understand? “I like being with you, Jenn.” He replied. “And only you.”

Jenny gave a smile and leaned over across the table to place a gentle kiss on his lips. Meanwhile, Mike felt the stabbing of guilt practically slice open his spleen.

>>>

Greg Thompson got pushed roughly into the visitation room. He thought it was so stereotypical, having the phones on opposite sides of the glass. It just like a cheesy cop show. But he was also curious to see who was coming visit him today, since no one really gave two shits about him anyway. No family, no friends. Maybe it was his lawyer going over last minute details for his trial. 

The officer escorting him shoved him onto one of the chairs in one of the stalls, as Greg looked through the glass, his face falling. Jenny smiled back, in a venomously sweet way, and waved at him. With a sigh, he picked up the phone as she did. “What do you want, lady?”

“Greg, we’ve talked about this.” She chided. “It’s Agent Briggs, remember?”

“I’m already on trial, so you come to nail me into my coffin?”

“Oh, no. I doubt you’ll get the death penalty. I think 30 to 40 years at least, but there hasn’t been a death penalty sentence in more than 10 years in the whole state.”

“What do you want?” He repeated with a gruff rudeness.

Jenny nodded, seeing that he was eager to get right to it. “I want the name of the guy who gave you the web address.”

He adjusted in his chair uncomfortably. “Who says there’s a guy? What if I found it on my own?”

She snickered. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how you rat bastards work. You guys are so skittish you make insects look brave.”

He scoffed at her. “You think I’m going to tell you anything?”

“Yeah, I do, Greg. ‘Cause from where I’m sitting, you don’t look like a man with a lot to lose.” She nodded at his handcuffs and orange jumpsuit.

Greg set his jaw and glared back at her, trying not to crack under her intense stare. “Why do you think I would want to help you? You’re the reason I’m in here at all.”

“Oh-ho, no. You’re in here because of Sandy Harding. Your mistake was getting caught.” She pointed a finger against the glass at him. “Here’s the thing, Gregory, you’re going to jail for a very long time. Whether it’s for kidnapping and murder or sex trafficking, it doesn’t really matter. The point is, you aren’t going to be breathing fresh air for a while. So, the way I see it, you can either accept your fate. Or… you can try and make the most of your situation.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, let’s just say, the warden owes me a favor. The question is… what do you want?”

“To be free.”

“Nice try, slick.”

He looked at her cautiously. “This is just some trick to slap some more time on my sentence, isn’t it?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Greg, why do you think we’re talking here and not in an interrogation room? This is completely off the record. All I want is information on the guys that you bought Sandy from. She was a good girl, and she didn’t deserve to be caught up in your sick and twisted world.” He hung his head for a moment, so she decided to press further. "I read your file, you know. You've had a pretty hard life."

Greg scoffed. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, that's why you're in cuffs facing life in prison." Jenny countered. "I know that life has never done you any favors and... quite frankly, I don't blame you for having a twisted view of the world. But you once told me that you would gladly admit your wrongdoings. What about atonement?"

The inmate sighed heavily. Jenny might have been super intense, but she was sort of making sense to him. “I want internet privileges. At least an hour a day.”

Jenny smiled victoriously. “Is that it?”

“Yeah, and no cell mates. I don’t like to share my space with someone else.” He grumbled.

“I’ll pass it along.” She leaned forward, eager to her what information he had. “What’s the name?”

“I only know him as Lawrence.” Greg admitted. “He was an old friend of my mom’s. Every once in a while, he checks in on me. The last time I saw him... had to be about three weeks ago, he gave me the site and set up the meet. He knew how badly I needed a friend.”

Jenny tried to maintain her cool. She couldn’t run with only a name. “You can’t give me anything else?”

He seemed to rack his brain, searching for anything else he knew about him. “He used to be a severe alcoholic, but he’s been sober for years… Wait, he works for a bus company at like a garage or warehouse."

Her ears perked up. “Which one?”

“Um… I think it’s… I don’t know, something about the coast or something.”

“CalCoast?”

“Yeah, that’s it. He’s like the manager or something.”

Jenny swallowed. Jakes and Paige really had stumbled upon a gold mine when they had found Bus 118 at the garage. Now, all they had to do was squeeze it out of this Lawrence.


	10. Promise

“Look, Shelby don’t worry about it,” Jenny was talking on the phone as she walked through the front door of Graceland. “You got a sick kid to take care of. That’s important, too.”

“Yeah, but we’re so close on this Jenn,” Her partner tried to argue.

“No ‘buts’. I don’t want to hear it. Go home and take care of your kid. Besides, without the website, we won’t be able to do much anyway. Give my love to the wife.” Before Grant could argue with her more, Jenny hung up the phone. She admired Grant’s work ethic, but there were sometimes, that her work ethic was almost unbearable. Mike and Jakes were working on getting Jakes under with the CalCoast garage, hoping to get in tight with Lawrence, who gave Greg Thompson the website. Jenny was starting to feel anxious that they hadn't made any headway in the Harding case. But just as she was starting to feel herself starting to spiral, Charlie was descending the stairs, hair flat ironed, with a bandana tied around her head, and wearing huge hoop earrings. “Oh, Mama, I know those earrings anywhere.” Jenny whistled. Clearly, Charlie had barely noticed her until she spoke, as she jumped slightly. “You back at the tattoo parlor?”

“Yeah, Mikey wants to know if there’s any word on the street involving Solano.” She was walking fast towards the door, giving off a “don’t ask too many questions” vibe.

Jenny caught her arm. “Hey, hey, easy, Speedy Gonzalez. I haven't seen much of you lately. What's your hurry?”

She was clearly not in the mood for games. “Didn’t you just hear me? Mike wants me out there. And I got a shift to get to.” Charlie wrenched her arm out of Jenny’s grip.

“Charlie?” But she was already out the door. Jenny couldn’t help but feel rejected and extremely worried. This was not like Charlie to act cold and distant. And quite frankly, rude. She heard another set of footsteps coming down the stairs. “Paul, what the hell is up with your girl?” Jenny demanded. "Why is she acting so cranky and distant?"

Paul rolled his eyes and ventured into the kitchen. “What makes you think I have anything to do with that?”

She followed after her brother. “You two still sticking it each other?”

“That is just crude, and you know it.” He cringed, grabbing for an apple.

“Paul,” She placed a hand on his arm, stilling his movements. The words lingered in her mouth for a moment, not wanting to bring all this up again. “The last time she was like was when she got roped in with Jangles. I’m worried, and I think you are, too.” She studied his brown eyes closely.

The truth was that Charlie was obsessed with watching over Juan Badillo’s widow, Kelly. She had been staking out Kelly’s residence and watching over her and her kid. Kelly, who had been ten years sober, had started drinking again and as Paul and Charlie just found out, the Bureau refused to give her Juan’s life insurance, because they never found the man’s body. Charlie wanted to help Kelly, to put things right from all the shit from a few months back. Paul wanted to help Charlie get closure, but also knew that she dug too deep, Charlie would find what really happened with Juan. Paul didn’t want to get Jenny involved. There was nothing she could do anyway; it would only make her worry. “Charlie’s smoking again.” Briggs finally told his sister. He was very good about telling only parts of a story, carefully avoiding a lie. “Or at least she was. Now she’s trying to go cold turkey.”

Jenny sighed. “I knew it.” The thing about cigarettes was that their scent clung to everything, no matter often you washed or tried to mask it with perfume. Charlie had stunk like smoke for the past couple weeks; it was unmistakable. “Why doesn’t she try the patch or something?”

“Well, you know Chuckie. Thinks she can beat this thing with pure will power alone.” Paul bit into an apple and checked his watch. He had to go meet with Kelly Badillo. “But fret not, dear sis.” He placed a kiss on Jenny’s forehead. “I shall keep a close eye on your mama.”

“Gross.” There was a reason why only Jenny got to call Charlie “mama”.

>>>

Johnny made a beeline to his room. Carlito Solano had just called him and invited him out to clubs. He had to start getting ready. Going over what he would wear, he threw open his door and saw Jenny sitting at his desk, typing at a computer. “Jenny, what the hell?” He gasped, definitely not expecting to find her there.

“One moment.” She didn’t even glance up from the screen, trying to finish up her mini-project.

“Why are you on my computer?” He asked incredulously, still angry at her. “You don’t get squatter’s rights to every piece of technology in the house, you know?” He reached out to take it from her, but she slapped his hands away.

“I’m almost done. Just keep your shirt on.” With a couple more clicks and keystrokes, she sighed out relief. “There.”

“You mind telling me what you’re doing now?” He demanded, not playing around. “What did you do to my computer?”

Jenny turned it around so he could see it. Johnny squinted to see a list of all the housemates listed on the screen. “Back when Jakes decided to bail on us, I put an email alert on all of you, so I would be alerted about any future transfers. I figured I was being selfish, so… I just installed it on your computer. So now, anytime someone tries to duck out of here, you’ll at least get an email about it.”

Johnny didn’t really know what to say. He was touched and conflicted all at the same time. “Is that how you knew about Z?”

She nodded. “I tried to get him to at least say goodbye. But he didn’t want to distract you from Carlito. I’m really, really sorry, Johnny.” He sank on his bed right across from her, making an active choice not say anything. So Jenny decided to fill the silence. “Look, I know that you and Bates had a whole ‘bro’ thing going on and I know it hurt you when he left. But I guess… I thought I could offer up my services to be your… ‘bro’ in his place?” He still refused to talk. Jenny rolled her eyes and stood up so she could walk closer to him. “Johnny, come on. You annoy me to no end ninety-nine percent of the time, and most of that is because you run your mouth like a motor. But I can’t stand it when you won’t talk to me at all. I need my bro back. Please?”

Jenny shook him by his shoulders enough, so he finally looked at her. His stoniness lasted maybe five seconds, before he nodded. “Alright, bro.”

She squealed excitedly and threw her arms around him, causing them to almost lose balance. “That’s so much better. Thank you.” Johnny couldn’t help but smile. It did feel good to be back to normal with her. “So tell me about Carlito.” She said backing away from him. “Are you in?”

“Yeah, he invited me out to the clubs tonight.” He told her.

“Look at you, J.T.” She poked at him playfully. “Wait, does that mean you need a douchy outfit?”

“Yeah,” He knew that she wanted to help him pick out his clothes.

Again, giving out another squeal, she ran over to his closet, in search for his collection of suit jackets. “So what’s he like? Carlito. According to the files, he’s quite the character.”

Johnny sighed. “That’s an understatement. He shot his own guy in the neck right in front of me.”

Jenny stuck her head out of the closet and looked at him in shock. “He what?”

“I know. It was intense.” Johnny fiddled with his phone in his hand. “I also think… no, never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. What are you finding?” He tried to look over her shoulder to avoid the subject.

Jenny closed the closet door and crossed her arms over her chest. “Bros don’t keep secrets from each other, Johnny. Spill.”

He leaned back and sighed. “I think Carlito… may be into me.”

She let this new information sink in. In all the files she had poured over, nothing indicated that Carlito was gay. Not that really influenced anything anyway. “Why?”

Johnny scoffed. “Really, Jenny? Why would he be into me?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She tried to tell him. “I meant, why do you think he’s into you?”

“Well, I may not know a lot about him, but I know that Carlito’s not really a subtle guy. He was just acting… weird.”

She chewed on her thumbnail in thought, a new set of worries seeping in. “You gotta be careful with that.”

“I’m not gay, Jenny.” He pointed out.

“I know that, dummy. But if Carlito is into you, then... this could add a whole new set of complications to your cover.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know. But what if I just tell him ‘no’?”

Jenny physically flinched. “I probably wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, not paint with broad brush here, but men don’t handle rejection very well. Especially a man like Carlito, who, as you just admitted, shoots his own guys in front of complete strangers. And we’re not talking about the Bradys here. This is the freaking Solano family. In other words, it could be really dangerous to outright reject him.”

“So, are you saying I should sleep with him?”

“No, no. That would actually probably be worse.” She walked towards him. “I’m just saying… be careful. Be smart about this. And if need be, we can talk to Mike and get you pulled out…”

“No, I’m not about to punk out.”

“And I’m not about to pick you up in a body bag, Johnny.” Jenny placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Just please promise me, you’ll be careful. I can’t have my bro dying out in these streets.”

Johnny smiled at her. “Okay. But are you ever going to help me pick out a jacket?”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, don’t be such a diva.”

>>>

Mike threw his phone across the living room in frustration. Jessica was on his case extra hard these days, trying to get him to provide some solid proof for his bus theory. But no matter how many times he explained that field work takes time, it still wasn’t enough. Jenny just happened to be coming in the room to see his little outburst.

“D.C.?” Jenny asked, as he sat down on the couch, rubbing his temples. She had been staring at the Harding case files for the past several hours. Even with all of her genius, connections, and theories, she was nowhere near solving the problem. One of her contacts from the Bureau that specialized in human trafficking cases had told her that there were literally way too many sites to search that it was near impossible to narrow down which one Sandy was on without more information. 

“Yeah, riding my ass about proof again.” He sighed, seeing the defeated look on her face. “Did Paige connect those girls to Solano yet?”

“Nothing concrete.” Jenny replied standing before him. Paige had been going back and forth between Graceland and Sylmar for the last few days, shutting down a few brothels along the way. Just another dead end. “But you know Paige, she’s not about to let this thing go.”

“What about your case? Any leads there?”

Jenny raised her eyebrows and set her jaw. “Yeah, but only nibble. Apparently, the guy who’s trunk Sandy was found in was supposedly supplied the auction’s address by the manager at CalCoast.”

He looked at her in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. So it’s a good thing you have Jakes in with him after all. If you don’t find the drugs on the buses, you might be able to find the website.”

Mike slumped against the back of the couch. “It’s like I can connect all the dots in this case, but can’t find one shred of proof to back anything up.”

“Hm, don't I know it.” Jenny sat down on the coffee table across from him, staring out of one of large windows facing the beach. It seemed as though all the “breaks” she had with the Harding case, it still didn’t seem enough. She was nowhere near finding out what happened to Sandy.

“Hey,” Mike’s voice got her attention once again. He gave her a reassuring look. “We’re going to find them.”

She bit her lip. “I don't know if we will, Mike."

"Yes, you will. You are a genius after all." He tried to smile, in an effort to cheer her up. But he understood her struggle. 

Jenny shook her head. "I've tried almost everything. I've talked to anyone and everyone and I am still no closer to finding out what happened to Sandy Harding that night. It's been weeks and still nothing." She cradled her head as she spoke. "This is just... way out of my wheelhouse. These girls are being sold, Mike. Like slaves. Someone's daughter or sister or loved one is being sold to the highest bidder. And hardly anyone knows about it. You know, I suppose staying behind a computer screen all the time, I’ve been shielded from the realities of these cases. They’re just pixels on a screen. But now… it’s more life-like and human. And I just… I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Look, human trafficking is whole new ballgame,” He reached out and stroked her arm. “That’s not something we are used to dealing with.”

Jenny looked at him once again. “You really think we’re going to find them?”

“Yes, we will.”

“Promise?”

He placed a gentle kiss on the back of her hand. “I promise.”


	11. Safety

Jenny practically flew six feet at the sound of her door flying open. She had been sitting on her bed, the Harding case files strewn around her when Mike nearly kicked her door open. “Please tell me you specialize in bus smuggling and have just never told me.” He demanded, his blue eyes now a shade of red with anger.

“What the hell, Mike?” She checked her pulse, which, as suspected was racing. “What ever happened to knocking?”

“Bus 118 had nothing.” He ignored her, pacing back and forth. “Me and a bunch of ICE guys tore that bus apart and there was nothing in there. No drugs, no nothing. We finally get close enough to get some goddamn evidence to take to D.C. and there’s nothing there.”

“Okay, can we please talk at a normal decibel, please? I think my windows are about to crack.”

“Jenny, I’m clearly not in the mood,” Mike snapped and rubbed his face. “It’s like I can’t catch a break with this case. With every gain, it’s like I take two steps back. And I’m… I’m beginning to wonder if it all really is in my head. If there was ever any merit to begin with and I was just too stubborn to see it.”

“You? Stubborn? I don’t believe it.” She quipped sarcastically. He only allowed himself a quick smirk, still reeling from the lack of evidence. “Come over here.” She gestured to the floor in front of her, as she moved to the edge of the bed.

He looked at her in confused. “Why?”

“Mike, you should really know better by now not to argue with me. Now sit.” She commanded. With a sigh, he reluctantly took a seat on the floor, his back resting against her bed. Jenny rubbed his shoulders and neck, feeling the almost stone-like tension. “This is merely a bump in the road. Every case has at least one bump. The Harding case seems to have nothing but bumps. But we've never let that stop us before. And I mean, we are talking about a cartel family here. None of these people make our jobs easy. But don’t worry. You’re going to get it.”

He could feel himself slowly start to relax, as her hands tried to work out the many knots in his shoulders. “How do you know? What if it just one big pipe dream?”

She reached one hand up and ruffled his hair. “Because I know this big ol’ head of yours. And I know that you are going to find some sort of loophole or back door that will blow this whole wide open. Because that’s just who you are, Agent Warren.”

When he had gone back to D.C., he had forgotten how comforting she was for him. She was like the human equivalent of wrapping up in a big, warm blanket while cozying up next to a fire. Mike grabbed a hold of one of her hands and placed a thankful kiss on it. “I’m sorry I was so grouchy.”

Jenny smiled and leaned down. “I think I know how you can make it up to me.” She turned his head and pulled him close, kissing him tenderly. There was still a very large question mark hanging over their heads. Neither one of them knew exactly how to categorize how they felt for one another. But something was becoming clearer as time went on. There was a very real and strong feeling between them. Safety.

>>>

Charlie was in the kitchen the next morning, trying to figure out what she wanted to eat. Jenny, who was trying to get an early start on the Harding case, came into the kitchen, but paused when she saw the other woman. “Hey, kiddo,” Charlie greeted with a friendly smile. “Second opinion, should I go with cereal or toaster waffles?”

Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know.” She replied not conversationally, as she made a beeline for the coffee pot. Charlie had been so distant lately, and the last time the two of them talked Charlie had nearly bit her head off.

“Hey,” Charlie grabbed her arm and caught her attention. “I’m sorry about the other day, alright?”

“Don’t worry about it” Jenny mumbled, trying to break herself free.

“Stop running away from me.” She raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m trying to say I’m sorry and I am. Can we please go back to being cool?”

Jenny hesitated, as she remembered the last conversation with her brother. “Why didn’t you tell me you started smoking?”

Charlie finally let go of her arm. “So Paul’s going around spilling my secrets?”

“No, I already knew, he just confirmed it. Come on, Mama, you were wearing really strong perfume, but it couldn’t hide all of it. I’m not stupid.”

“I know, baby.” She kicked at the ground. “I’ve just been having a rough couple of weeks. And I’m trying to quit, honestly. But it’s really, really hard.”

“You should be grateful that Johnny didn’t hear that last line.” Paige commented as she entered the room. “Coffee?” Jenny gestured towards the pot and Paige poured herself a large mug. With all the travelling back to and from Sylmar, trying to find any info on where Lina disappeared to, it was starting to take a toll on her. “So Charlie, you’re smoking now?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m quitting. Or trying to, at least. But I’ll kick the habit, don’t worry.” She then went to the freezer. “I think I’ll go with toaster waffles.”

“Any scoop on our ladies yet?” Jenny asked Paige as they sipped at their coffee.

“Still nothing solid.” She shook her head in disappointment. “I thought that kicking down doors would get me somewhere, but it’s got me almost nothing. Even with all the scumbags I have talked to, they seem to know of the pink backpacks, but they don't know a lot. Either that, or they have a strong cone of silence that I can't crack. But I’m scoping out another potential brothel today, so we’ll see what I turn up.”

“I don’t like the idea of you two getting mixed up in this whole sex trade stuff,” Charlie shook her head. “It’s an ugly part of our society that you two shouldn’t be exposed to.”

“Relax, Mama,” Jenny assured her. “You can’t shield us from the horrors of the world forever. Besides, who better to take down these bastards than us?” She gave Paige an encouraging nudge with her elbow.

“I just want you to be careful, okay?” Charlie told them. “I know Mike has gone a little tunnel-visioned about this whole thing, but I will not let him risk my best girls.”

“Well, he won’t risk Jenn, at least.” Paige muttered into her mug. Charlie and Jenny paused in their movements and looked at her, Jenny feeling a shade of pink settle in her cheeks. “Okay, really, out of the two of us which is more expendable?” She challenged.

“Neither of us, Paige.” Jenny said defensiveky,

“Let me put it this way then, out of the two of us… which one is he screwing?” Charlie turned her focus to Jenny, who was now completely red.

Jenny scoffed. Paige had already guessed correctly about her and Mike a couple days ago, but as far as she knew Charlie didn't know. Judging from the look on Charlie's face, it was news to her. _Thanks, Paige_.“Since when did this become Sex and the City?”

“I knew you two would get back together. I just knew it.” Charlie smiled widely. “Dale owes me ten bucks.”

“Seriously?” Jenny groaned, leaning against the kitchen island.

Paige placed a hand on her shoulder. “Babe, there are no secrets in this house, remember? Plus, we kinda guessed it after Bates left.”

“Does everyone know?” She asked them, Charlie and Paige not giving her an answer. “Great.”

“I think it’s wonderful.” Charlie tried to comfort her. “You two are great together.”

Jenny sighed. “We just didn’t want it to come across to anyone as playing favorites or anything like that. I’m sorry.”

“What exactly do you guys have anyway?” Paige questioned.

“I don’t know.” She answered honestly. “We were never really good at that part.”

Paige studied the contents of her mug for a moment, not wanting to ask this question. “What about when this is over?” She finally forced herself to ask. “When this case is all wrapped up in a nice bow… is he going back to Washington?”

That caught Jenny off-guard. She had never really thought much about their future, more so just enjoying the moments as they came. “I don’t know,” Jenny shrugged. “Why does that matter?”

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all.” Paige told her. “I don’t want this to turn into something you can’t come back from.”

“She might have a point.” Charlie said thoughtfully.

“Oh, my god,” Jenny could feel her walls build up and locked down around her. “I’m a big girl, alright? I can deal with this, whatever may come of it. I don’t need you two to be my emotional guardians.”

“Tough,” Charlie poked her in the shoulder. “That’s who we are, whether you like it or not.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. "What about you and Paulie? You two were pretty tense for a while."

Paige leaned in towards Charlie. "So are you guys still a thing or not?" 

Charlie was not a blushing girl, but despite her best efforts, she felt a light shade of pink settling on her cheeks. "Whatever." Jenny and Paige giggled a little. "But Paige, what about that guy you were seeing for a while?" referring to the one guy Paige had hooked up with a couple times from the Drop, their favorite local bar. 

As Paige rolled her eyes, Jenny chimed in. "Oh, yeah. He had some basic white boy name, like Collin or Cameron or something."

"Connor." She stated. "And that hasn't been a thing for a while."

"Why? I liked him." Charlie teased her. "He had very impressive muscles."

"Yeah, I miss his stories about working out." Jenny said sarcastically.

"Yep, and he didn't like that I was tougher than him, so." Paige shrugged. 

"So, it sounds like we need to set you up." Charlie taunted her. 

"Yeah, maybe Johnny?" Jenny laughed as she quickly retreated back to her room, to start working on the Harding case and away from the two other women. She loved her friends, and enjoyed anytime that she had with the girls. But Paige's words were still haunting her. What would happen when the bus case was over? Would Mike go back? Would they be back where they started? And... how exactly would she feel if he did leave. Either way, she had a lot to think about.

>>>

Finally, some good news! Jakes had been granted access to the garage where the bus line “fixed up” bus 118. They had two versions of the bus, as Jakes found out, and it would come in to the garage to be "fixed up", which meant that the contraband that was loaded on to the bus would be removed. When asked to help dispose of barrels of "waste", Jakes' curiosity had got the better of him. Glancing inside one of them confirmed everything. Heroin. Mike was ecstatic. At long last, something he could bring to the Bureau to justify his investigation.

Mike was in his room, typing up the report at his desk, while Jenny sat on the floor and stared at the same screen on her computer, trying her best to concentrate enough to read it. Paige’s words had been haunting her all day. What will happen when the case ends? Would he want to stay? Or would he go back? Did she want him to stay? A lot of questions were filling her mind, as much as she tried to work through them. A pen dropping in her lap shocked her back to the present. She looked up and saw Mike smiling at her. “Hey, welcome back to planet Earth.” He joked. She had been unusually quiet while they worked. He had tried to call out her name to grab her attention, but she didn’t flinch, so he decided to throw a pen to get her attention.

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head and started typing at her computer.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He pried.

Jenny tried to appear nonchalant. She didn't want to bring down his mood. He was feeling pretty good after the break in the case. Besides, Jenny wasn't sure she was ready to talk about that just yet, “Just the case.”

He knew she was lying. “Well, it’s worth something that we found the contraband, right?”

“But we didn’t find the girls.” She pointed out.

Mike nodded slowly. “No. But maybe this is a step in the right direction.”

“Maybe.” Her tone was less than convincing. She tried to pour more focus into searching for some clues for the auction site. Feeling there was a lot that she was not saying, Mike decided to do something brave. He slowly got up from his chair and walked over to her, closing the computer while she was working. “Mike, what the hell?” She snapped, withdrawing her hands and giving him an incredulous stare.

“There is something you aren’t telling me.” He gently took the computer off her lap and placed it behind her on the bed. As he took a seat beside her, he added, “So spill.”

Jenny folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them. "How do you think this will all end?"

He knit his eyebrows together. "What?" 

“Best case scenario, we find all the evidence we need to connect everything to Solano. We find the girls, find the rest of the drugs, we slap handcuffs on all the bastards, and the case ends.” She then turned her focus to him. “Then what? Would you go back to D.C.?” It was clear by the look on his face that he hadn’t thought much about their future either. 

“I don’t know…” He answered honestly. “I suppose it all depends on what happens with this case.”

She bit down on her tongue. “Yeah, well, gotta keep your options open, I guess.” She stood up to try and leave the room.

“No, wait, Jenny.” He groaned. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No, it’s fine, Mike.” She decided to pace his room instead of leaving. “We’ve never talked about anything like this before, so why should we start now?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mike asked, starting to regret asking her what was wrong.

“I don’t know, Mike. Because I don’t know what we are. Because that’s the one conversation we always refuse to have, no matter what. We’re no closer to figuring this out than we were when we first met. I mean, Jesus, Mike, how long do we need to keep screwing each other before we can finally start to talk about this?”

A knock at the door interrupted them. Typical. “Hey, yo, Mike?” Johnny’s voice came from the other side of the door.

“Get lost, Johnny.” Jenny snapped. "We're busy."

But Johnny had already opened the door. He didn’t really care anymore. Both Jenny and Mike saw the look on his face. Regret. “I might have lost Carlito.”

“What?” Mike finally got to his feet.

“I went over to his house and he was attacking his sister, Lucia. And… I might have punched him.” His gaze was towards the ground the whole time he spoke.

“You punched him?” Mike repeated incredulously. “Johnny, why on Earth would you do that?”

“He was choking her out, man. What was I supposed to do?”

“You realize that you might have…”

“Mike, seriously?” Jenny silenced him. She walked closer to Johnny and threw her arms around him. Clearly, he was in need of comfort. He wrapped his arms around her limply, feeling the shame of what he did still. “You okay?” She asked.

“Yeah.” He broke away from her and turned to the blonde man. “I’m sorry, Mike.” He then slunk towards his room, hanging his head the whole way.

Jenny and Mike stood in the room, staring back at each other. Not sure of what to say. "Well, with that new complication," Mike shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. "We might not need to worry about the end just yet."

She glanced down at the ground. "Why is that we can never talk about this kind of stuff?"

He smirked. "Because we don't want to ruin anything. Either that or we are way too chicken than either of us care to admit."

“I like you, Mike.” Jenny heard herself say before she could think about it. The words hung in the thickness in the air. “God, I sound like a freakin’ sixth grader.” She nervously laughed and scratched the back of her neck. Mike was almost frozen solid, his face unreadable. “But I need to know now. If you don’t feel the same way, then we need to end things right now, before things get messy.”

“I like you, too, Jenny.” He finally said, forcing it out of his throat like it was stuck. When he heard himself say them, he cringed. “You’re right. That does sound like a sixth grader.”

She smiled at him. “So what exactly does this mean?”

He shrugged. “I'm not exactly sure. But I don't think we need to get too hung up on the labeling thing.”

"Yeah, if we like each other, that's all that matters, right?"

"Right." Mike nodded. "So... we'll just see where this takes us."

Jenny ran to him and jumped into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist and kissing him passionately. Mike wasn’t fully expecting it, so even though he was able to grab her, they fell back onto his bed. As they reacted to their fall, they couldn’t help but laugh, feeling like giggly teenagers.


	12. Hiccup

Mike’s alarm seemed to stab the air violently. He turned over to shut it off, as Jenny groaned into his shoulder, feeling way too comfortable. “Five more minutes.”

He smirked at her grogginess. “Come on, you’re the one who said you wanted to go into the station early this morning. You said Grant had some sort of lead, right?”

Jenny huffed, as the memory returned to her. Late last night, she had received a text from Shelby saying that she might have stumbled upon something big in the Harding case. “I regret saying that now.” She nuzzled closer to him to further her point. "I'm sure she can tell me it later."

“What if I make you breakfast?” He offered.

“You cook?” She muttered.

“I’ve been told I make a mean frittata.” Mike nudged her playfully.

Jenny craned her head back so she could look at him. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

“Well, it’s kind of my only selling point.” He joked, leaning forward to kiss her.

She smiled as she kissed him back. “I don’t think it’s the only one.” She quipped between kisses. “Fine. Make me a frittata. But only if you pour me a big cup of coffee to go with it.”

A few moments later, Mike was able to make his way down to the kitchen, leaving Jenny behind to slowly get changed and ready for the day. There was a certain skip in his step that morning, unable to stop himself from whistling a merry little tune. It was one of those mornings where he felt like he could take on the world. Jakes had found evidence to support his bus investigation. Things were at a good place with Jenny. What could go wrong?

He poured himself a glass of orange juice, unaware that there was a woman in a pantsuit behind him, watching him. “Good morning, Agent Warren.” The voice nearly caused him to spill orange juice on the floor. He turned around and saw Jessica Foster standing before him, smiling widely.

“Jess, what…” He stammered over his words. Some part of him was happy to see her. But Jenny immediately came to his head. A flashing red light was going off in his head. He had nearly forgotten about Jessica… It almost felt like his brain was sputtering like an old engine. “How did you get in?”

“Briggs.” She replied, giving him a hug. _Which one?_ He thought. “It’s been too long, Mike.” Jessica looked up into his face, maintaining that smile.

As they broke apart, and before Mike could think of any excuse to leave, Jenny walked in. Raising her eyebrows at the newcomer, who was just embracing Mike, she immediately fought the urge to punch the blonde woman in the face. “Um, hi?” She greeted.

Mike swallowed a scream. “Agent Jennifer Briggs, this is the assistant to the director Agent Jessica Foster.” He introduced, trying to be as cool as he could.

“As in… the boss lady?” Jenny asked, remembering seeing the name show up in all the reports.

“Oh, I like that.” Jessica laughed. “I might have to add that to my title.” She extended a hand towards Jenny. “So you’re the infamous Jennifer Briggs?”

“Jenny, actually.” Jenny corrected. “I only get called Jennifer if I’m in trouble. Or if I don’t like the person. You know of me?” Did Mike go blabbing to her about their relationship?

“Of course, you worked that one governor’s case a while back. Oh, I forget which one… the one from Florida.”

“Yeah, I did.” She nodded. “If by worked, you mean I helped convict him, then yes. His mistake was having very minimal internet security.”

Mike looked between them and held his breath. He had told Jessica a bit about Jenny. Meaning that he had told her that he had befriended her. But that was the extent he had gone. Jessica knew that he was having a hard time adjusting to the D.C. life, while also riding the high of everyone regarding him with such reverie. And now here it was, the situation he most feared. Why was he such an idiot? “And so you live here?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah…”

“I’m sorry, I knew you were a freelancer, and you were working the case, but I didn’t really realize that Mike had enlisted _every_ one of his roommates.” She turned her attention towards Mike, who forced a nervous smile.

“Well, welcome, I guess.” Jenny sighed. “I’m sorry, we just weren’t expecting you. Um, you hungry?”

“Yeah, I could eat.”

“Well, Mike knows how to make a mean frittata.” Jenny nudged him knowingly while going towards the coffee pot, while Mike tried to remain as stoic as possible.

“Okay, then Agent Warren,” Jessica Foster flashed him a wink. “Make me your meanest frittata.”

Mike reluctantly began gathering the ingredients and pans as Jenny and Jessica sat down across from each other at the dining room table, making small talk. There was no force on Earth that could get him to relax. Why was Jessica here anyway? Was she here to talk about the case? Or to see him? Was their little… “fling” going to come out in conversation? Jenny mostly stuck to talking about how to she helped convict a crooked governor, which was good. For now. Mike tried to focus on making breakfast, but couldn’t keep his eyes off the two women.

Paul eventually came down to join them, which made Mike calm down a little bit. Maybe with him around, they could avoid any awkward conversations coming up.

“So, I gotta ask,” Jessica pointed to Paul and Jenny across the table from her, as Mike held his breath again. “How is that you two ended up working in the same field? My brother is an accountant, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in his line of work, let alone, working with him.”

Paul ruffled Jenny’s hair affectionately. “Well, believe me, this one’s hard to get rid of.”

Jenny elbowed him in the stomach and fixed her hair. “Sorry for caring about you, Paulie. But it’s not like I went into the career field wanting to be a fed.”

“So what happened?” The blonde woman asked, sipping her coffee.

Jenny sighed as she prepared to tell the story. “Well, it’s computers that drew me in initially. When I was a teenager, I fell into the tech nerds crowd and learned how to work my way through any piece of machinery. And we got really good at it. So good… we started to develop a little bit of a ‘Robin Hood’ mentality. We were able to reroute a bunch of money from rich CEOs accounts and redistribute them how we wanted. Sometimes it was to a charity, other times it was to a sickly family member.”

“But never to us.” Paul shook his head. “We were still shopping at Walmart, but you didn’t think to wire us some cash?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Well, because we were getting good at it, and doing it frequently enough, we eventually made the List.”

“List?” Agent Foster gave her a confused look.

“Yeah, the FBI likes to keep tabs on the technologically literate population. Mostly so they can try to keep tabs on us or try to detect any potential threats. It’s a very elite list of people. We’re not talking people who know how to install adblockers or something. No, this list is for the big leaguers. Every once in a while though, they will pick someone from the List to recruit.”

Jessica nodded knowingly. “Ah, so they’re the ones who got you roped in.”

“It helped that Paulie was already in training.” Jenny shrugged. “So he could give me the inside scoop on if it was really worth it. And it meant that I could keep my brother in line, so I bought in.”

“Charlie!” Paul waved to Charlie, who was then talking to Mike at the stove. “Come meet the lovely Jessica Foster.”

“Pleasure.” Charlie shook the woman’s hand. “Heard a lot about you.”

“Need a hand, Mike?” Paul asked him.

“Nope, I got it.” He answered a little too quickly. “So, Jessica… why are you here?”

She painted a smile on her face, knowing that this conversation was going to happen sooner or later. But why not still enjoy the niceties of getting to know his roommates? “I came to celebrate. I wanted to congratulate you. Getting eyes on the contraband is a huge win.” 

“That’s what I keep telling him.” Jenny muttered. Johnny came strutting in the room, yawning and stretching. Jenny noticed that he was shirtless, which was not abnormal. The man liked to brag about his “abs of steel” whenever he could. But what was unusual was the fact that he was only wearing his boxer shorts. “Whoa, Johnny.” Jenny held a hand over her eyes. “Why are you not wearing pants?”

“It’s my house, too.” He argued.

“Well, you might want to tell that to our special guest, our A.D. Agent Foster.” Mike nodded towards the newcomer.

“Oh, hey. Nice to meet you.” Johnny gave her a charming smile and shook her hand. “I like your… pantsuit.”

“Thanks.” She replied. “I like your boxers.”

“Yeah, seriously, Johnny, pants are not optional.” Charlie chided.

“Why is Johnny nearly naked?” Paige asked, averting her eyes from him as she walked into the room. Her eyes fell on Jessica. “Who are you?”

“Jessica Foster.” She greeted and shook her hand.

Paige raised her eyebrows. “Oh, wow. So our boss is coming to check on us, Johnny’s in his underwear, and Mikey’s cooking. What next?”

“Agreed.” Mike turned off the stove and leaned against the counter, unable to hold back anymore. “Now that we’re all best friends, what is going on?”

Jessica hesitated for a moment. But knew that there was no use avoiding it any longer. “I’m here to shut down the buses.”

Her words seemed to bounce off the walls, as everyone reacted to this news differently. “Excuse me?” Jenny gasped.

“You can’t do that.” Mike argued, feeling a new panic set in. There was no way he was going to give up on this, after all the work he had put into the case. “We are this close to leading it all to Carlito. And when we do, his whole operation shuts down.”

“And we haven’t found the girls.” Paige added.

“The buses are our only link in.” Jenny sat forward and tried not to lash out at the woman. She was not about to let some pantsuit tell her that she would have to start back on square one with the Harding case.

“I’m well aware of that.” Jessica nodded in acknowledgement but showed no change in opinion.

“And Johnny’s nearly there with Carlito, right?” Mike turned to Johnny desperately.

“Dude, don’t you remember?” He bowed his head and stared at his feet. “I sort of punched him in the face and definitely ruined my cover.” Mike closed his eyes and shook his head, remembering the night before.

“It doesn’t matter the story.” Jessica shrugged. “The director is shutting down our phony Caza war by the end of the week.”

Paul exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “Then the Solanos are going to know that the FBI was playing them.”

“Exactly, and I don’t know about you but I would like to walk away with a couple tons of contraband before they do.” Jenny bit down on her tongue, knowing that she was asking them. She was informing them. “The last bus will be your last.” Jessica stated. “So whatever you can do by the end of the week.”

“Thanks a lot, Agent Foster.” Jenny got up and stormed out of the room, letting her anger get the best of her. 

>>>

“This better be good, Shelbs, because I am not in the mood.” Jenny slumped into one of the rolling chairs in a huff. It had gotten to the point where she was getting tired of seeing the conference room set up with all the Harding case files strewn all over it. Was she about to hit another bump in the road?

“Okay, ignoring your piss poor attitude.” Grant bit back. She pulled up a video of one of the interrogation rooms. On the screen, Jenny could see a teenage boy sitting across from Officer Grant. “Remember how we figured that Sandy was driving away from her friend’s house the night she disappeared? Well, I think I might have found the answer.”

She hit play as Jenny watched intently. The video version of Grant asked, “How did you know Sandy?”

“We were in a few classes together.” The shaggy-haired boy answered, his voice laced with melancholy. “And we… were sorta hanging out.”

“And by hanging out, you mean…?”

“I don’t know. We weren’t dating, but we weren’t exactly friends.” Jenny tried to ignore the overlap between that and her and Mike’s relationship.

“Were you having sex?” Grant asked bluntly.

“Jesus,” The boy shifted uncomfortably. “Why does that matter?”

“Mr. Michaels, Sandy is dead. I’m afraid we need to know every single thing about her, in order to find out who is responsible.”

The boy sighed. “No… she didn’t want to. And I wasn’t about to push her or nothing. I’m not a creep.”

Shelby was heard clearing her throat and continued to question the boy. “So where were you on the night she disappeared?”

“I was at home.”

“Can anyone else confirm that?”

“No, I was alone. I live with my dad and he works nights. And my sister moved out a year ago.”

“Why was Sandy coming over to your house, Kyle?”

Jenny sat forward. “Whoa, what?”

Shelby motioned for her to wait and listen. “Why do you assume she was coming to my house?” The boy in the video asked.

“Because your house was only a couple blocks away from where we found Sandy’s abandoned car. According to her mom, she told them that she was going to study at a friend’s house in the opposite direction. So why would she lie?”

The boy sighed. “We were… I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Kyle, I’m afraid you have no choice unless you want to spend a night in jail.”

He hesitated for a long moment. “We were… that is… she was going to come over and… we were going to hang out.”

“And by hang out you mean….”

“Jesus Christ, we were going to have sex, alright?”

Shelby paused the video and turned to Jenny with a victorious grin. “I was going through Sandy’s social media profiles and kept seeing this kid’s name pop up over and over again. Plus, I was thinking back to when I was a teenager. I wasn’t exactly a good girl like Sandy, but I followed my parents’ rules. I knew that they wouldn’t approve of me sneaking out to go hang out with a girl. So I took a leap and brought him in for questioning.”

“Okay, but…” Jenny tried to maintain a level head. “Just because she was going to meet him, doesn’t mean that he kidnapped her.”

“True,” Grant nodded and grabbed a file. “Until I saw the list of cars belonging to the family. Turns out Kyle just inherited his sister’s car. And look what kind of car it is.” She pointed to the list and saw that the kid drove a mini-van. Just like the car that picked up the girl’s on the patio video tape. “And to top it all off, we checked his internet history. Turns out the kid’s really into bondage porn.”

“Holy shit, Shelbs.” Jenny gasped. This was a pretty good lead. “But wait… does that mean the kid is tied to the auction site?”

“I don’t really know that part yet.” Grant shrugged. “But it’s enough to get a warrant for the kid’s arrest. I was just about to go swing by his house to pick him up. Wanna join?”

“Hell yeah,” Jenny practically jumped up from her chair and raced towards the door. As she did though, her phone started to ring. It was a number she didn’t recognize. She answered it as Shelby and her made their way to Shelby’s squad car. “Hello?”

“Agent Briggs, this is Jessica Foster speaking.” Jenny felt like a kid caught in a lie.

“Oh, hi…” She said slowly. “Listen, about this morning…”

“No, don’t worry about that. That’s not why I am calling.” The woman explained. “Dale Jakes just received intel that the next bus is expected in two days. Now because of the pressure from the director and this being our last bus, I am pulling out all the stops on this one. I’ve already called in LAPD for back up and… unfortunately, I need to pull you and Agent Paige Arkin from the sex trafficking case.”

Jenny stopped cold in her tracks. Shelby also stopped and looked at her partner in concern. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m sorry, but we are going to need all hands on deck with this next bus, so we can’t afford any distractions.”

“Excuse me, Agent Foster, but in case you may have forgotten, I am a freelancer. And I am already working a case at your boss’ insistence. But neither of you have any authority to pull me from any other case…”

Jessica interrupted her. “We are prepared to provide whatever financial compensation you will require…”

“It’s not about the money.” Jenny scoffed, as Shelby bowed her head.

“No, you’re right. It’s not.” She argued. “But I think you and I both know that if you refuse to cooperate with us, it will be very bad for your business. Good luck trying to find anyone who will want to recruit you if you piss off the FBI.” Jenny felt steam rolling out of her ears, knowing she had a point. “Look, I am sorry, but this is only going to be for a couple more days. After you are finished with this case, you can go back to whatever you are working on. But we are not asking for your help, Jenny. We are requiring it.”

Staring up at the ceiling, Jenny spat into the phone. “You don’t get call me that anymore. Call me Jennifer.”


	13. Smoke

Jenny and Paige arrived at Graceland at the same time, each fuming about being pulled from their sex trade cases. They stomped up to Mike’s room, who was sitting at his computer, trying to avoid this exact encounter. As the two women threw open his door, he jumped back and instinctively glanced at the windows, trying to determine which one would be the best one to escape out of.

“What the hell, Mike?” Jenny placed her hands on her hips.

“You’re pulling our team?” Paige demanded wide-eyed. “We were about to make another arrest today.”

Mike sighed. “It wasn’t my idea…”

“No, it was your girlfriend’s idea.” Paige barked back. “How long you’ve been screwing your boss, Mike?” Jenny raised her eyebrows and looked at Mike expectantly. He could practically see the flame in her eyes.

“She’s my boss.” He tried to shrug.

“Am I wrong?” Paige challenged.

"Paige..."

"Am I wrong?"

Mike looked between the two women, but tried not to linger too much on Jenny’s gaze. Regret consumed him. He was caught and the windows weren’t accessible at this point. There was no escape. “No.” He admitted. Jenny’s mouth twisted in anger, remembering when she had asked him if he had been with anyone else and he denied it. “Look, it was just a little… office fling.”

“Mm, well, you seem to be really good at those.” Jenny muttered bitterly.

He tried to give her an apologetic look, but she refused to look at him. “You’re more than just a fling, Jenn.”

“It doesn’t matter right now.” Paige told them. “Because Lina is still in the wind.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried to talk her out of this?” Mike asked defensively. “She’s the head of the investigation. There’s not a lot that I can do. But I have tried, okay?”

“Well, maybe you can sleep with her.” Jenny suggested in bitterness. "Maybe that'll change her mind."

Paige looked at Jenny in surprise. “Actually… that might work.”

Mike’s stare bounced between the two of them in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“I’m saying… maybe you need to go and… convince her.” Paige repeated. From the look on her face, Mike could tell that she meant what she was saying.

He scoffed. “Okay, I want you think about what you just asked from me.”

“I have thought about it, Mike.” She insisted. “Lina is still out there and more girls keep coming into this trafficking ring every day. I will not and cannot walk away from that. So frankly, I don’t care anymore how you make it happen, but you get me my team back.” Paige stormed out of his room, leaving Jenny and Mike standing there alone. Jenny’s angry glare was fixed on the wall.

Mike felt like the largest asshole alive. He should have told her about Jessica. He should have told Jessica about Jenny. He should have done a lot of things. But now, he was facing the consequences of his actions. “Look, Jenn…”

“You were acting strange and jumpy this morning.” She commented, her voice low and menacing. “I thought it was because she was your boss. But now, I know the truth. You were worried about your mistresses finding out about each other.” Jenny finally turned back to him, her eyes now completely red. “You are unbelievable.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny.”

“For what? The fact that you lied to me or the fact that you got caught?”

“Well…” Mike rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I never lied about only wanting to be with you. I just didn’t think it was important to…”

“Oh, I get it.” Jenny had a smile on her face, but he knew it was not because she was happy. “You didn’t lie to me. You found a loophole and just didn’t tell me the whole story. Oh, well, thank you for clearing that up for me, Paul.” She turned on her heels and stepped towards the door. Mike grabbed her arm to stop her, but she immediately batted it away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I thought you said it didn’t matter to you if I had slept with anyone else.” He asked.

“It doesn’t!” She exclaimed. “I don’t care if you screwed everything from here to Washington. I care about you lying to me, and don’t tell me you didn’t. The fact of the matter is, I looked you dead in the eye and asked you point blank if you had been with anyone else and you didn’t tell me. And even before that, you had every opportunity to come clean before...” Her thoughts went to the night before when they were sharing their feelings for each other. 

“I know.” He nodded. “I know that I screwed up. And I know should have told you, but believe me when I say that Jessica is not a thing. We never were a thing; it was never like that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Mike.” Jenny could feel tears stinging her eyes. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“You can.” Mike reached out to grab her shoulders, but after she flashed him a warning look, he lowered them again. He wanted nothing more than to just hold her and convey to her how sorry he felt. “I meant what everything that I said to you. And I know I screwed up by not telling you about Jessica, and I am sorry.”

She studied his face closely. He was being genuine from what she could tell, but it was still hard to place complete trust in him. “I want my case back, Mike.” She told him. “We were just about to make an arrest on a person of interest when your _girlfriend_ pulled me off the case. She threatened to blackball me if I didn’t cooperate. I'm not walking away from this either.”

He shook his head. “Do you really think I’m going to sleep with her in order to persuade her to give you and Paige your team back?”

“Why not?” She shrugged. “You ain’t going be sleeping with me anytime soon, so you might as well get your rocks off somehow.” Jenny turned for the door before she stopped herself. “Here’s a bit of relationship advice, Mike, when you lie to a girl, it doesn’t exactly put her in the mood.”

As much as he wanted to stop her, Jenny was already out the door, slamming the door behind her. Mike stood in his room, being slapped in the face with his mistakes.

>>>

Jenny spent most of the day in her room, barely coming out to eat, and avoiding Mike at all costs. Figures the second she started letting her guard down, even an inch, he stabs her in the back. It made her wonder why she even bothered with him. When he had told her about his secret investigation into Paul, she had felt the same way. How many more times would she allow him to lie to her before she was done with him? But despite her best efforts, she still cared about him.

An evil idea struck her. Not exactly illegal, but neither Agent Foster nor Mike would approve of it. But it was for a good cause. Maybe justice could finally be served. Jenny snuck a peek into the hall, making sure Mike was nowhere in sight. A quick glance towards his room told her that he probably was out. Probably with Jessica… Pushing that thought out of her brain, she walked towards Paige’s bedroom, eager to conspire. But on her way there, Johnny was just coming out of his room in a suit jacket and a crisp button-up. She whistled when she saw him. “Is that James Bond I see?” She teased him.

He smirked. “So you think I look hot, huh?”

“Well, you don’t look horrible.” She countered. “What’s the occasion? You roping in another gal pal?”

“No, uh, actually…” He shuffled his feet awkwardly. “I’m going to meet Carlito.”

The smile on her face evaporated. “I thought you blew that cover. Didn’t you punch him in the face?”

“Yeah… but… you know how I told you before that I thought he was into me? Yeah well. I went to his house yesterday to apologize and he basically professed his... whatever.”

Jenny was shocked. “Jesus Christ.” But then she looked back over his outfit. “So… you guys going on a date then?”

Johnny tipped his head back and sighed. “Mike wants me to try and persuade Carlito to move up the next shipment.”

She scoffed. "Is he?" Mike abhorred the idea of him sleeping with Jessica Foster to try and persuade her, and now he was recruiting others to do the same? What a real asshole he is. “I don’t like this, Johnny.” She said out loud. “He’s still dangerous. And you’re not into him. Don't you think there's going to be problems with that?”

“I know.” He shrugged and pushed his hands in his pockets. “But I mean we’ve got less than 24 hours to do anything on this case, before Lady Pantsuit shuts everything down so…”

She snickered bitterly. “Now you sound like Mikey. Not everything revolves around this case. You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m sorry, J.B.” He slipped past her and descended the stairs. She stared after him, trying to send any positivity his way. Now, she was more determined than ever to enact her evil idea.

Jenny knocked on Paige’s door, and opened it a creak. Paige was sitting on her bed when she motioned for Jenny to walk in. “I’m sorry you had to find out that way about Mike.” Paige told her as Jenny closed the door behind her. “I wanted to be wrong.”

“No, you didn’t.” She smiled at her.

“No, you’re right. I didn’t. But I am sorry.”

Jenny took a seat on her bed across from her. “Look, I didn’t come in here to talk about Mike. I’m just as angry as you are that we’ve been pulled from the sex trafficking case. And I’m not willing to give up on it.”

“So what are you saying?” Paige asked, already guessing where this conversation was leading to.

“What if… you take an innocent drive and happen to end up at a bus station? And what if when you’re there, a tinker bell makes an appearance? Well, the FBI handbook clearly states that we must intervene when we see a crime being committed.”

Paige raised her eyebrows at her. “You’re saying I should go behind Mike’s back and continue working the case?”

“Why not? Mike went behind everyone's back when he was investigating Paul.” Jenny countered. It was a risky move, sending someone on an "errand" under these circumstances. Mike wouldn't like it, but she no longer cared what Mike did or did not like. “And take Jakes with you. I don’t want you facing these bastards without backup.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” She asked.

Jenny shrugged. “Well, because I know that Jakes is probably doing nothing anyway. And… I can _distract_ Mike. Keep his mind off you while you take down the bad guys.” There was a lot of using sex to get what you wanted happening in Graceland at that moment. So why not capitalize on it?

“You devious bitch.” Paige smiled at her. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Absolutely. Because the same guys who have Lina, probably took my girl, Sandy, too. I’m tired of letting these guys think that they’re getting away with that.” Jenny grabbed a hold of her friend’s hand. “I don’t care what it takes to end this anymore. And I know that you want find Lina. So go get her.”

>>>

A knock on her door made Jenny get up from her laptop for the first time in a few hours. She had been reading up on the arrest of Kyle Michaels, the kid who Sandy Harding was intending on meeting the night she disappeared. An article was posted about the arrest, stating that the kid was arrested for “possible connections with kidnapping”. Jenny had smirked at that sentence. That was part of the reason for his arrest, but she knew it was not the whole story.

When Jenny opened the door, she found Mike standing there, hands in his pockets. Initially, she felt happy to see him. But then she remembered his lie and where he had possibly just come from. “Can I come in?” He asked.

As much as Jenny wanted to slam the door in his face, she let him in. Paige and Jakes had already left for the bus station, so she needed to do her part in distracting him. After closing the door, Jenny turned to him and folded her arms across her chest. “The human trafficking thing is off.” He told her.

Jenny shook her head. “So you didn’t go see Jessica then?”

“No, I went.” He replied.

“So what? You weren’t good enough or something?”

He stared back at her with his damn puppy eyes. “I couldn’t go through with it.” Jenny met his gaze, but didn’t say anything. “And she knew that my heart was somewhere else.”

Jenny laughed bitterly. “So you think some cheesy line like that and the fact that you didn’t sleep with someone else is supposed to make up for everything?”

“No, I know it doesn’t.” He dared to take one step towards her, but only one. “I know that I have a lot of groveling to do to make you understand how sorry I am. But the truth is… the reason why I even started anything with Jess way back then is because I was trying to forget about you. I kept thinking about you all the time, and I thought that it was something I could just get over. But tonight, I still couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Jenny knew that she had to let him think that he was doing a good job of apologizing. But she was still angry at him for lying. However, she still really did care about him. “So she was a rebound?” She asked.

“Yeah.” He nodded, daring to take another step closer to her. “And as things progressed, I thought that if I tried to end things with her, she would pull the plug on my bus theory. But I meant what I said when I said that you’re the only one that I care about Jenny.”

She stared back at him and closed the distance between them. “Prove it.”

Mike grabbed her face and pulled it to his, letting their lips press together. Jenny still didn’t trust him and was still mad at him. But she would lying if she didn’t enjoy kissing him. But before things could escalate, Mike’s phone rang. They pulled apart as Mike dug his phone out of his pocket. It was Briggs.

“Mikey, Johnny did it.” He greeted when Mike answered the phone. “The pickup is happening in an hour. Charlie and I are on our way.”

Mike and Jenny looked at each other. This was their final chance to nail Carlito to the wall.

>>>

Jenny strapped on her bullet proof vest. Mike and a whole gaggle of FBI and DEA agents and LAPD officers stood around waiting in the parking lot outside of the garage where Jakes had been undercover. They were gearing up and lying in wait for Carlito and Johnny to show up to pickup the drugs Bus 118 had dropped off a few days before. Jenny had been able to convince Mike that Paige and Jakes had not been picking up their cell phones, and that was why they weren’t there. But she had sent them both a text explaining what was happening. No word back from either of them from their stakeout on the bus station in search for more girls in pink tinker bell backpacks. Charlie and Paul were tailing Johnny and Carlito, making sure they didn’t make any attempt at escaping.

“Since when did you become a gun-totting agent?” Mike asked her, as she finished adjusting the uncomfortable vest on her torso.

“Since crashing at Graceland for an extended period of time.” Jenny answered. “About a couple months back, they got all pissy that I was staying there when I was technically not an agent. So I had to make it official. And now I am reminded why I hate going into the field. These vests are very constricting for women.” To emphasize her point, she readjusted it further.

“Well, you look tough.” He joked before turning and facing the group of agents and officers around them. “Alright, listen up. Carlito is about five out. Hold your positions until we get him into the building. I repeat, no one moves until Carlito Solano is inside the building.” Everyone nodded and went about ducking out of sight.

Jessica Foster stood with binoculars aimed to the street. Jenny tried to avoid her as much as possible. Not only was she angry at her for taking her off the Harding case, but… well, you can probably guess. “No visuals yet.” Agent Foster reported to Mike, who gave her a nod in acknowledgement.

“You should probably duck out of sight.” Jenny found herself saying. “You don’t want to give away our position.”

Jenny gave Mike one long stare before crouching behind a vehicle and withdrawing her weapon. They stayed crouched down, ready for attack.

That is until Paul’s voice came over the walkie. “Mike, Carlito and Johnny just turned around. I don't know why.”

“What?” Mike shouted into the walkie. He looked back to where the barrels of “waste” sat in front of the garage. Had they really come all this way for nothing? “Okay, everyone move!” He ordered. “Let’s go. Carlito’s not coming. We need to lock down that evidence.”

Jenny sprang from her crouched position and followed close behind Mike, agents and officers swarming around them. They made their slow approach to the barrels. As they got closer, Jenny caught a whiff of something in the wind. It was pungent enough to make her react, but it took her a moment to place it. Gasoline. Of course, they were at a garage, so the smell of gasoline wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. But from the quick whiff she got, it smelled like a lot of it.

BOOM! It echoed over the open space of the parking lot as flames burst from the barrels. Everyone ducked back, reeling from the explosion. Jenny found her arm instinctively reaching out to Mike, as if to protect him. All they could do was stare at the dozens of barrels of heroin that were burning in front of them. Mike felt like the wind was knocked out of him, as he watched the one thing he had been working so hard on for weeks literally go up in smoke.

As much as everyone tried to douse the flames and salvage the contents in those barrels, it was too late. There was nothing left.

Jenny helped arrest the manager of the bus station, Lawrence, much to her delight. “Maybe you’ll get to meet your pal, Greg Thompson, in jail.” She muttered to him as she shoved him into a squad car. Everyone was already milling about trying to process the scene, Mike still staring in utter defeat at his burnt evidence. So Jenny took it as an advantage. “Where are the girls, Lawrence?” She asked him, leaning on the door of the car.

The stout, bald man looked at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Bullshit.” She seethed at him through clenched teeth. Lowering herself to get closer to his face, her voice became low and dangerous. “Greg told me everything. I know that you know about the pink backpacks. So just tell me.”

The man steeled his face. “You can talk to my lawyer.” He stated. Jenny’s mouth formed a thin white line, as she slammed the door in his face.

Mike made his way to her, desperate to look at anything than the rubble of his failure. “He say anything?”

“Two sentences.” She reported back frustratedly. “He don’t know nothing and he just lawyered up.”

Mike glanced around the lot, glaring at all the uniformed officers and agents. “I think we have a mole.” He whispered to her.

She was still angry at Lawrence to really hear what he had said. “What?”

“No one knew Carlito was coming until I announced it. And then suddenly everything blows up in my face? It can’t be a coincidence.”

It was Jenny’s turn to glance around. “There are a lot of uniforms here, Mike. Could be any one of them.”

Mike nodded towards Lawrence in the cop car. “You think he knows?”

“Of course he knows.” Jenny replied. “He knows a whole helluva lot, but isn’t say anything. And if you recall, he just lawyered up.”

His face was unreadable. Mike slowly made his way over to Lawrence, hatching a plan in his brain. He had a lot riding on this case and devoted way too much time to let things just topple to the ground. He was determined to end this, once and for all.

>>>

Jenny had called Jakes and Paige’s cell phone numbers nonstop all night. When she tried to ping their locations, the phones were turned off. She didn’t know where they were. Had they found a tinker bell? Did they make an arrest? Are they laying on the side of the road somewhere dead? Jenny was about ready to hop in a car and drive, when she received a call from an unknown number. “Hello?”

“Jenny, it’s Jakes.” He spoke into the phone quickly. “Listen, have…”

“Dale, thank god!” Jenny gasped in relief. “You had me worried sick. Why won’t you answer a phone call, for crying out loud?”

“I’m in jail.” He replied.

Jenny tried not scream into the phone. “You’re where?”

“In jail. Listen, have you heard from Paige at all?”

“No, isn’t she with you?” A nervous feeling spread over her stomach like butter.

“Goddammit.” He punched the nearest wall.

“Where is Paige, Dale?”


	14. Lizard

“So you got Paige and Jakes to do your dirty work for you?” Johnny asked. Jenny was in the middle of telling the rest of the house about Jakes being in jail and Paige gone missing.

“It wasn’t dirty work, Johnny.” She snapped at him. “We both wanted to find these girls and Foster was going to shut the whole operation down. We had no choice.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?” Mike asked.

"Well, because we were afraid you'd go tattling on us or try to stop us."

"No. I wouldn't. And why didn't you go with her?"

Jenny hesitated. She was not about to go blabbing to the whole group that she was supposed to make a distraction for Mike. “It doesn’t matter now. Because Paige is off the grid. She’s not answering her phone and I can’t get a location on her.”

“Jenny…” Paul shook his head at her.

“Look, I didn’t intend for this to happen, Paul. But we're in it now ”

Charlie rubbed her temples as she thought. “Okay, let’s think about this. When did Jakes last see Paige?”

“Apparently, they had spotted another pink backpack,” Jenny explained. “Paige made contact with the girl, while Jakes was tailing her. Somewhere along the way, Dale got the cuffs slapped on him.”

“This is crazy.” Johnny shook his head.

Jenny whipped out her phone. “I’m going to call in whatever cavalry I can to go find her.”

“No, you’re not.” Paul told her.

She shot him an incredulous look. “The hell I’m not.”

“Look,” He held out his hands to calm her down. “If Dale was acting as back up, then he probably put a wire on her, right?”

“It’ll be in his truck.” A light bulb could practically be seen over Johnny’s head.

“Charlie and I will go get the truck.” Paul nodded to her, as she stood up ready to go.

“And I’m going with you.” Jenny nodded.

“No, you’re too hot.”

“Of course, I’m hot, Paul!" Jenny's heart was racing a mile a minute, as her brain tried not think of the horrors that her friend was facing. "Paige is in danger because of me. You think I’m about to sit around and wait for her?”

“Charlie and I will get the truck.” Paul repeated, then turned to Johnny. “Johnny, you want to go get D.J. out of lock-up?”

“Sure.” He nodded.

“Fine, then I'll go with you," Jenny volunteered. "'Cause ain't no way in hell I'm sitting around here." 

“I’ll go, too.” Mike stepped forward. “Maybe I can try and stop Jenny from murdering someone in a police station.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “I make no promises.”

>>>

Jenny paced in the waiting area of the station as Mike sat in one of the chairs. They were waiting for Jakes to be released. Johnny was busy posting his bail and filing out the paperwork.

“She might be fine.” Mike tried to assure Jenny.

She scoffed. “Don’t be naïve, Mike. She’s with those bastards right now. I can feel it.”

“We’ll find her.”

“You don’t know that. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” In all the excitement, she had almost forgotten about the fact that he had lied to her about his relationship with Agent Foster. It seemed too minor of an issue in comparison. But she would keep it on file, for if and when they found Paige.

Johnny finished with the paperwork. “They’re going to bring him out now.”

“Did they say what he was in for?” Mike asked him.

“Yeah,” Johnny snickered. “Said he violated a restraining order and when they tried to detain him, they tased his ass.”

Jakes was brought out then by an officer. Johnny ran over to him, still laughing. “Hey, what happened?”

“Where is she, Dale?” Jenny marched up to him, fists clenched at her side. Mike stood up and was ready to grab her at any moment.

“I don’t know.” D.J. hung his head.

“You don’t know?” She pushed, feeling Mike’s hand hovering over her arm. “You were with her?”

“Yeah, and then I was in jail,” He argued. He turned to Johnny. “Why did you bring her, man?”

Johnny shrugged. “She just kinda invited herself.” They all started to walk back towards the car, but Jenny was not ready to let things go.

“What’s this bullshit about a restraining order?” She asked Dale.

“Never mind that.” Mike added. “Why didn’t you have a cover team to begin with?”

“It was your girlfriend’s call.” Jakes replied.

“I never said that you couldn’t have a cover team, Dale.” Jenny argued.

“Not you. His other girlfriend.”

“What, Jessica?” Johnny asked, stealing a glance back at Mike, who was biting his tongue.

“I don’t get involved in whatever pussy’s Levi’s involved with.” Dale muttered.

Mike took an aggressive step towards Dale, as Johnny held his arm between them. “Hey, chill.” Johnny tried to soothe. “We’re not going to find Paige by yelling at each other in a parking lot.”

“He’s right.” Jenny begrudgingly nodded. “Let’s go see if Charlie and Paul found anything. And we better find Paige.” She pointed a finger in Dale’s face. “For your sake.”

>>>

The housemates reconvened at Graceland in the living room a little later on that day. According to Paul and Charlie’s sleuthing, they found Dale’s truck and heard the recording of the girl Paige made contact with seizing because a ruptured balloon full of heroin had leaked in her stomach. They also heard Paige deciding to go in as the dead girl and assume her identity, assuming that Jakes would follow her. Jenny had heard the recording and wanted to scream until her voice gave out. It was her worst nightmare. One of her best friends was being held by sex traders.

Jenny soon found herself sitting on the couch, laptop on her lap as she tried to scour the internet for any sign of Paige. Dale, Charlie, Johnny, and Briggs all gathered around the map they had laid on out on the coffee table of the area, trying to determine where the best place to hide was. Mike was there, but he was standing off to the side, staring out one of the windows. Of course he was worried about Paige and felt the sting of her and Jenny going behind his back. But that wasn't what was on his mind at that moment. Lawrence. The manager at the CalCoast bus garage that he had stashed away in a house somewhere. Lawrence would know how to find Paige. But with the few conversations and confrontations he had with the man, he wasn't talking. The question was, how was he going to get him to talk?

“Jesus Christ,” Charlie shook her head. “She’s still out there all alone. She could probably be…” Jenny felt her stomach sink to the ground, but she tried to focus on using her computer skills to her advantage.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Johnny tried to console Charlie, as Paul placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“We know enough.” Mike finally said, still staring out the window. “These guys were looking for a Russian girl with belly full of drug balloons. If she wasn’t exposed before, she probably is now.”

“Thank you, Einstein,” Dale quipped at him.

“Shut up, Dale.” Jenny snipped, tearing her focus from her screen. “He’s right. That’s why you need to start combing.”

“Paige spent weeks looking for these girls.” Mike said solemnly. He turned to face the group but his gaze was lowered toward the ground. Jenny could see something hiding behind his gaze. “Hell, Jenny spent weeks looking for these girls. You two didn’t find anything. How are we supposed to?” Jenny swallowed thickly as Mike made a hasty exit, Briggs following close behind him.

“So you’re just going to quit?” Johnny called after him.

“That’s unbelievable.” Jakes shook his head.

“Forget him.” Jenny barked. “If he doesn’t want to be a part of this, that’s fine. We don’t need him. Now, I would suggest starting where you last saw her and send a team out in every direction.”

They went about planning how they were going to try and find her, and organizing their plans of attack. Jenny helped for a little while, before needing to take some time away. She threw her laptop to the side and walked over to one of the windows, peering out to the beach below them. Graceland was a beautiful house with absolutely breath-taking views of the beach and ocean. Something only a few people get the luxury to experience. It should have been a serene and calming scene, but to Jenny, it wasn’t calm. She was worried and sick to her stomach. Down below on the beach, she could see Mike and Paul talking briefly before heading to Paul’s truck. They were up to something, but Jenny didn’t care anymore. She just wanted Paige back, safe and sound.

“Hey, kiddo.” Charlie reached an arm around her and looked out onto the beach below with her.

“It’s my fault, Mama.” Jenny whispered, feeling tears coming to her eyes. “If I hadn’t sent her…”

“It is not your fault.” She insisted, pulling her close.

Jenny wrapped her arms around her friend and clung to her desperately. “If we lose her…”

“We won’t. Paige is a tough girl. She can handle herself.” The words were coming out of Charlie’s mouth, but she didn’t quite believe them herself. Truthfully, she didn’t know if Paige was ever going to come back. She was grateful that Jenny’s head was tucked underneath her chin, so she didn’t see the tears forming in her eyes. “And what do I always say?”

Jenny let out a chuckle. “Bitches get shit done.”

“Damn right, they do.” Charlie shook her head, trying to blink the tears away. She lifted Jenny’s head to look at her once again. “So, let’s get shit done.”

With a new vote of confidence, Jenny poured herself into her work. She began contacting everyone she knew to be on the look out for Paige, using all of her pull in the Bureau that she could. But they all told her what she already knew. It will be nearly impossible to find her without knowing the auction’s web address. Jenny knew that she was never going to be able to stumble upon it. It wasn’t exactly something she could Google. They had to find some sort of way to get that address.

So, she called Shelby Grant. “I heard about what happened.” Shelby told her on the phone. She would have been at the bus takedown from earlier, had she not already taken the night to celebrate her anniversary. When she got back to the station, it was all anyone could talk about. “That’s nuts that everything exploded like that.”

Jenny remembered that Mike had mentioned to her that he suspected a mole being among those that were there that night. She wanted to believe that Shelby couldn’t have been the mole, since she wasn't there that night. But truthfully, she couldn’t take that chance. So she decided to side step it for a different time. “Listen, Shelbs. I need a favor.”

“Sure, anything.”

“I have a missing agent and I have reason to believe she is under with the same guys who sold Sandy Harding.” She explained.

“Whoa, really? An agent?”

“I need you to shake down Greg Thompson or Kyle Michaels and see if they know of anyone we can contact to get ahold of the new web address for the auction site."

"Kyle Michaels isn't our guy." Shelby sighed. "His internet history was time stamped, and he was online when Sandy was taken. We had to let him go."

 _Dammit, can we get one win?_ Michaels was their first big lead in weeks. "Okay, then just Greg then." Jenny rubbed her forehead, not letting herself dwell on the Kyle thing for too long. He was not the main problem she was facing then anyway. "And... I need you to double check Sandy’s autopsy.”

Jenny went on to explain how the girl Paige was with before she went with the traffickers had seized due to a ruptured balloon in her stomach. “But they did a toxicology report.” Shelby pointed out. “All that came back was rohypnol. If Sandy did swallow balloons, they would have found the balloon and/or the drugs would have come up in the report.”

Biting her tongue, Jenny tried to convey the importance of the situation. “Shelbs… I need you to go with me on this… but I’m not sure everyone on your squad is trustworthy.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Jesus Christ, Jenny.” Grant finally said.

“I know, I know. This is a lot. But I really need this from you. I’m not going to be able to find my missing agent or what happened to Sandy without that address.”

After another long pause, Shelby agreed. “I do what I can.”

>>>

“We got the website.” Paul slammed down a piece of paper onto the dining room table, where everyone was seated around. Mike hung back, a haunted look in his eye. “And we got a meet."By then, night had fallen, Mike and Paul had been out on their mysterious errand all day. But they returned with information.

“Whoa, wait, what?” Jenny asked, looking between the two of them in shock. “How?”

“Doesn’t matter right now.” Briggs said dismissively. “But we are scheduled to meet someone at the Cielo Motel at noon tomorrow.”

“We?” Charlie asked.

“Well, actually, we’ll probably send Mikey in.” Paul pointed to his friend. “You can pass as a rich asshole right?”

“Our guess is that it’s some sort of pickup point.” Mike spoke up finally, ignoring Paul’s attempt at a joke.

“Yeah, then Mike gets taken somewhere else to look at the girls.” Dale nodded his head in understanding. “So, we can tail you and find the location of where they’re keeping them.”

“Good. Then shut it the hell down.” Jenny added.

“Well,” Johnny thought out loud. “What about taking them down at the motel?”

“Jesus, Johnny,” Paul seethed, letting the high emotions of the situation get the better of him. “We just said the motel was a pickup point!”

“Whoa, relax!” Charlie scolded them. “We’re all on the same team here. That’s a valid question, Paul."

“Okay, well, the details matter.” Paul told her. “Attempting to take down to early might jeopardize Paige’s life.”

“He’s right.” Jenny nodded in agreement. “Way too many variables. We can’t risk Paige even more than we already have.”

“We just need to be ready to be mobile and fast.” Mike stated.

“Did y’all get your info from a distillery or something?” Jakes asked, looking them over and smelling the air. “You reek.” Everyone slowly recognized the smell, too. The clear stench of alcohol.

“You just suddenly got all this intel, huh?” Charlie questioned, noting the guilty look on both Paul and Mike's faces.

“Now’s not the time, Chuck.” Paul nodded towards Mike. “Can we just start working on this man’s cover, please?”

Jenny opened her laptop to start writing up Mike’s new rap sheet. “Guess this is where I come in. Hit me.”

“Well, my guess is that this trafficker doesn’t just sell to anybody.” Dale suggested.

“Yeah,” Briggs nodded, as Charlie started to walk away from the group. “Someone with cash, but nothing flashy, Chuck.” He called after her. But she was already making her exit. Ever since the whole Odin debacle, she liked to think she could pick up on when Briggs was hiding something. And he was hiding something.

“A few priors for solicitation,” Dale went on, as Jenny typed quickly. “Maybe a red flag as a sex offender.”

“Yikes, Mike is one bad boy.” Jenny commented, before she could stop herself.

“Let’s just not scare him away.” Mike shrugged.

As they went about talking through Mike’s cover, Jenny worked to enter in the web address that Paul had presented to them. She entered it in, and waited for the site to load, holding her breath the entire time. The images of girls staring back at her came up. As she scrolled through all of the options, her stomach churned. All of the girls looked scared and hopeless. These were all daughters, sisters, and someone that somebody cared about. Sandy Harding’s face was probably on this site before. Then, suddenly, her breath stalled again. One of the girls looking back at her was a familiar face. Familiar in the sense that the features were recognizable, but the expression of fear was not. “I found her.” Jenny gasped out loud. “Oh my god, I found Paige.”

Everyone gathered around Jenny’s computer, as she fell apart. Paul wrapped his arms around his sister as she sobbed into his shirt. Paige’s scared face was seared into all of their minds. Johnny was able to write down how much she was selling for and got in contact with the Bureau for the request for the money.

Mike had sunk into a chair and looked off into the distance, while Jenny started to calm down. Dale nudged him in the arm. “I know that look by now, Levi. You look like you have something weighing on you.”

Briggs looked to Mike and gave him a secret look. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Mike spoke, Jenny could feel Paul tensing up. “But I don’t think taking these guys down tomorrow is our best option.”

Paul relaxed as Dale and Jenny shot him a look. “What?” Jenny gasped.

“Look, I want to get Paige out for sure…” He assured them. “But that place is the last link I have to the Solanos.”

“The Solanos?” Jenny repeated incredulously. She could barely believe her ears.

“Whoa, Mike, let’s think this out.” Jakes tried to say.

“I have.” Mike insisted. “The buses are gone, Carlito’s in the wind, we might have a possible leak or informant. The only we have now are these girls.”

“ _These girls_ are not pawns in your little chess game, Mike.” Jenny spat at him, while Paul rubbed her shoulders to try and keep her calm. “They’re human beings.”

“I know.” He gave her an apologetic look. “But if we shut it down tomorrow, then we may never get a chance to get back at Carlito, and after all the bullshit he has put us through…”

“Us?” Jenny now stood up. Briggs knew there was no stopping her now. “There is no ‘us’ in this scenario, Mike. We had nothing to do with this until you showed up and forced us into it.”

“Jenny, these girls were involved with your Harding case, which occurred way before I showed up. If Carlito Solano is responsible, don’t you want to see him brought to justice?”

“Is that what this is about? Justice?” She challenged. “Not to help repair your bruised ego?”

“Jenny…” Paul tried to say in vain.

“Shut up!” She screamed, slamming her fist on the table. “Someone please tell this asshole that we are taking down that sex trafficking ring tomorrow and talk some sense into him.” Dale and Paul looked down at the ground in silence. But their silence spoke volumes. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?!”

“Jenn, please…” Briggs reached out to put a hand on her hand, but Jenny turned her computer around to show them the screen of all the frightened faces of the women on the website. 

"Do you see these women?" She asked the men. Her gaze lingered on Mike, who was forced to look down at the ground. "Do you see them?"

"Jenny," Johnny groaned. "Of course, we do." 

"Good, that means you are one step above these pricks that run this website." Jenny spat. "These men that we are dealing with don't see women. They don't see human beings. They see a source of income." Her laser eyes fell on Mike once again. "And you want to keep things just like that?"

Mike leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table. "If we shut down this site now, who's to say that they won't ship in other girls and create others. It's like when you cut off a lizard's tail. It grows back. If we want to destroy this lizard, we need to cut off its head. And I'm sorry, Jenny, but that means..." 

she stormed off, not wanting to hear any more of what Mike had to say. As Jenny walked up the stairs, her eyes flew towards Paige’s door, just a few feet away from hers. Tears returned to her eyes, as she tried to make a beeline for her room.

Mike felt a stab of guilt. He could come clean. He could tell her that he and Paul had basically kidnapped and tortured Lawrence. How they waterboarded him with booze, even though he had been sixteen years sober. How taking part in a heinous act like that had seemed to take a part of his soul. He had wanted to find out where Paige was and see if he could find out who the mole was that tipped Carlito Solano off about the bust. But would she understand all of that? Would she forgive him for committing such atrocities?

Eventually, they all called it a night and went to bed for a restless night sleep. No one was comfortable with the idea of Paige spending a night with sex traffickers. And even though they had everything set to go for the next day, they couldn’t help but worry about their roommate and friend.


	15. Stakes

Jenny and Jakes found themselves in Jakes’ truck the next day, watching the Cielo Motel, where Mike was waiting for the sex traffickers. Despite all of Jenny’s best efforts and persuasion, Mike still refused to shut down the sex ring. It was the only connection they had left to Carlito Solano, which he was reportedly in charge of the whole thing. Jenny hated the idea, but she knew that Paige would hate it even more.

“Jesus Christ,” Jenny groaned as she rolled down the window. It was the middle of the day in California, and the weather was showing its true colors. “Can we turn on the air or something?”

“I would rather conserve the gas I have to tail Mike, wouldn’t you?” He snapped, staring out the window with binoculars.

“Well, we’re no good to him if we die from heat exhaustion.” She grunted. He had initially tried to convince her that he could tail Mike alone, but after citing the last time she had left him alone, she was able to work her way in. The tension between them was still very present. Dale was a notorious lone wolf, but he would be lying if he said he didn't feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for what happened to Paige. He didn't need Jenny's help and nagging. But what he didn't know was that Jenny felt the same amount of guilt. 

Suddenly, a red minivan pulled up to the motel and the passengers inside gestured for Mike to hop in. Upon seeing the vehicle, her stomach dropped to the ground again. “Oh, my god.” She gasped and took out her phone to take pictures of it. Video footage of Sandy Harding on the night she disappeared had showed her getting into a minivan. And it looked a lot like the minivan that was sitting in front of them. “I think I know that car. That's the car that took my dead girl.”

“Well, look up the plates.” Dale said, as he started his car. The red van was just pulling onto the street again and Dale was moving the car to follow them. Jenny activated a mobile hotspot and typed the license plates into a database.

“Okay, looks like the car belongs to… Edward Sulla.” Jenny informed, as the results came up. Sulla was, as Mike and Paul had reported, the head guy of the auction site. He was the one to contact when you wanted to purchase a girl. “So no connection to Solano yet.”

“Anything on this Sulla guy you can find on your magical computer?” Jakes asked, still following behind the red van.

She clicked around to dig up some dirt on him. “Few priors involving solicitation, surprise, surprise. Quite a few physical assaults and domestic abuse charges, all against women. He was serving time in prison for a spell but was released due to overcrowding. Way to go, America.”

“Sounds like a real asshole.”

“Yeah, maybe you ought to exchange phone numbers or something.” Jenny muttered.

But being in a small space, Dale had heard her. “You don’t think I messed up purpose, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” She tried to say.

“No, it does matter. Otherwise you would not have invited yourself on this mission and you would not have said anything.”

“I invited myself on this mission to make sure Paige gets away from those creeps safely. If I’m going to be outvoted on shutting the place down, then I at least want to ensure that Paige is okay.”

He set his jaw. “Because you don’t trust me.”

Jenny lowered the screen and turned to face him, but he kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “Well, let’s examine the evidence, shall we? First, you decided to move out of the house randomly and with no notice or fanfare or anything. Then, you come back in a drunken stupor, screaming and yelling at Zelanski of all people. Then, when I ask you to be Paige’s backup, you get caught up in some restraining order bullshit. So you tell me, Dale, on those three facts alone, do you think you are trustworthy?”

Dale remained silent. In fact, he remained silent for the rest of the time he was tailing the red van. Jenny returned to trying to find out more information on Sulla and see if there was any connection between him and Carlito. She had also sent the pictures of the red van to Shelby for her to analyze and compare to the porch footage they had on Sandy’s disappearance.

At long last, they found themselves in an industrial part of the town of Sylmar. The red minivan pulled up to a large white building surrounded by chain-link fences. Dale pulled the car off into a neighboring lot, where they could watch the entrance of the building, but not be obvious that they were spying on the traffickers. The paint on the outside of the walls was peeling and degraded, weeds covered what little grass was out in front. It was a very poorly kept place, that was certain.

Jenny entered in the address into her computer. “According to my records, this place used to be some sort of warehouse for a major company back in the 80s. But it’s been abandoned for years. No one officially owns it.”

“Well, they gotta be using electricity or something, right?” Dale asked, as he watched Mike being escorted into the building by the passengers in the van, a burlap sack placed over his head, so he wouldn’t be able to see.

“Hold your horses.” Jenny made a few keystrokes and found what she was looking for. “Bullseye. The utilities are being paid for by… Sulla. Again. Dammit.” She had hoped with her skills she would be able to find some sort of connection with the Solanos. Maybe then, Mike would have ordered the place to get shut down. But still nothing. All they had was Sulla, so in the eyes of the law, he was the main culprit. Jenny took another look at the decrepit building, hoping that the inside was much nicer. “Do you think Paige is still in there?”

“According to the website, she is.” Dale answered, lowering the binoculars he was looking out of.

She chewed on her thumbnail, wanting nothing more than to break down the front door and attack everyone inside. "What happens next?" She asked aloud. "I mean, even if we rescue her... is she ever going to be the same?" 

Jakes didn't answer. He couldn't answer. Slowly, he lowered the binoculars to his lap. After fiddling with them for a minute, he let out a sigh. “You remember my son? Daniel?”

Jenny looked over at him in surprise. “Yeah.” Was he really just about to open up to her?

“A few weeks back, his mother, Cassandra…” Jakes tried to explain slowly. It was clear that he was not used to being so forthcoming, but he knew that Jenny deserved to know the truth. “She had agreed to start letting me see my son. And I got all excited. He’s nine, but yet I’ve never even met him. So I got a place. Just for me and him. That’s why I moved out. I wanted to create a better environment for Daniel, to actually be a father to him. When it got to the day for me to meet him, she had issued a restraining order against me. Slapped me in cuffs, and the whole deal.”

“Dale, you don’t have to…” She noticed the pained look in his eye, even though he kept his focus on the white building.

“No, I do, Jenn.” He nodded. “I messed up and you need to know why, because you were right. I got drunk. I got angry at Zelanski for no reason. But I had to accept... that my son.... But just as I was trying to accept it, Daniel found me. He showed up at the place I had gotten for us and… I knew I should have brought him back or called Cassandra. But… that was the first real moment I had with my own son. And I don’t know… I guess, I wanted as much time with him as I could. So I took him to the pier, we went out for ice cream, the whole cliché father and son shit. I didn’t think anything would come from it. And I definitely didn’t think that cops would be knocking on my window right when Paige needed my help.”

“That’s why you got tased.” Jenny realized, feeling moisture form in her eyes. “You were resisting arrest to go rescue Paige.”

Dale Jakes nodded and looked down in his lap. “Do you think Paige will ever forgive me?”

She could practically hear her heart tear into two pieces. “Dale.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Of course she will. The truth is… I was the one who suggested you for her backup the other night. I wanted to stay behind and keep Mike occupied, but I didn’t want her going in alone. It was my fault you two were even out that night. And I acted like such a dick to you. So, I think the real question is, can you forgive me?”

Jakes finally looked to her and placed his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly. “I can’t blame you for wanting to get justice for your dead girl.”

“And I can’t blame you for wanting to be a father.” She countered, giving him a wet smile.

A few moments later, Paige and Mike exited the building, still being escorted by the thugs that ran the place. Paige was kicking and flailing under one of the men, who was manhandling her into the minivan. Dale and Jenny followed the vehicle back to the motel and made sure the two of them got to Mike’s car safely. The plan was to meet up at Graceland, rather than debrief in the motel. They didn’t want to chance having any of the traffickers spying on them or suspecting anything.

Dale and Jakes arrived at Graceland before Paige and Mike. Charlie, Johnny, and Paul were all waiting in the living room when they arrived. Dale and Jenny were able to inform them that Paige was still alive and okay, which gave them all instant relief. But then came the waiting.

“Do you think Sulla grabbed them?” Jenny asked nervously, getting tired of waiting. She was pacing back and forth and wringing her hands.

“They’re fine, Jenn.” Paul assured her. “They’re just making sure they’re not being followed.”

“Well, why is it taking so long?” She demanded.

“Maybe we should give Mikey a call.” Charlie suggested.

But before anyone could make a move, they all heard the front door open. Everyone who was sitting, which was everyone but Jenny, stood and watched as both Paige and Mike walked through the front door. Instantly upon seeing her, Jenny ran to Paige and pulled her into a tight hug, sobbing into her shoulder. The only words that she could find were “I’m sorry.” So she repeated them to her over and over. Paige accepted her hug, but was not as emotional as her. Instead, she had a dead stare, clearly haunted by the whole ordeal she had just been apart of. Eventually they were able to get Jenny away from her, so the rest of the housemates could hug Paige and welcome her home. Paige was basically a stoic robot. She had told them all about what it was like on the inside, how she had found Lina, how they treated the girls. It sent chills down everyone’s spine, but Paige spoke with no emotion. The trauma of what she went through was still very fresh, and she was probably still in shock.

Jenny tried to look for Mike, but he had slipped out of sight, unnoticed by anyone. She had to find him, though. There were still many things that they needed to discuss. When Mike had slipped out, he had gone back to free Lawrence, telling him that he was to disappear and talk to no one. The guilt of what he and Paul had done to him, pouring alcohol down his throat despite his long sobriety, still weighed heavily on him. But still, they got Paige back from it.

Jessica Foster had invited him to go back to D.C. with her. At first, he had entertained the idea. Maybe he could still be that rock star he wanted to be. And after all, being director of the FBI had always been his dream. But that suddenly wasn’t what he wanted anymore. He turned Jessica down and decided to stay at Graceland. There were many reasons for it. But one reason was pretty clear. Jenny.

>>>

After getting Paige settled in, and making sure she was alright, Jenny decided she needed some comfort food. She descended the stairs, debating on whether or not she wanted something sweet or salty. As she made her way into the kitchen, she stopped when she saw Mike sitting at the dining room table, practically buried in paperwork. No doubt all the case files and reports having to do with the buses. Upon hearing her, he lifted his head and looked at her.

“Hi,” She managed to say.

“Hi.” He answered back. Both stared at each other for a long minute, not really sure what the next best thing to say was.

“I’m in the mood for Oreos.” Jenny blurted out. “You want some?”

A smile formed on his face. First one in a while, he realized. “Sure.”

She grabbed a package of Oreos from the pantry, while he shoved the papers he was working onto the side. She then sat across from him, opening the package and withdrawing a couple of cookies. “Cheers.” She joked, as she handed him one. They bumped their cookies together and bit into them, chewing silence.

“Aren’t you supposed to dip these in milk?” He asked.

“Yeah, well… we’re out of milk actually.” She shrugged. “Been so busy lately, it hasn’t crossed our minds.”

Again, they chewed their cookies in silence, trying not to look directly at each other. A lot had happened since the last time they were alone. Mike had tried to convince Jenny that his fling with Jessica Foster was only that. Jenny had faked believing him, in order to keep him from finding out about Paige and Jakes. Since then, the bus investigation literally went up in flames, Paige was kidnapped and placed in a sex trafficking ring, and then was rescued. It was a lot to digest.

“You’ll be happy to know that I’ve decided to stay here indefinitely.” Mike finally stated.

Jenny looked at him shocked. “I thought D.C. was your dream.”

“It was.” He nodded. “But I’ve realized recently… it’s not anymore. I think I’m needed here.” He flashed a wink at her, recalling when he had invited her to go to D.C. with him, but she had told him that she was needed at Graceland.

She grabbed another cookie and fiddled with it in her hands. “I don’t think that I’ve thanked you yet. For getting Paige.”

Mike offered a weak smile. “I know it wasn’t exactly what you wanted. But I promise, I’ll shut that horrible place down as soon as I can.”

She shrugged again. “Yeah, well… you might have been right about it after all. I checked it out and there is nothing that I can find that can connect Sulla and the Solanos in the digital world. If we had gone in there today, we would have only been able to pin everything on Sulla. And who knows how many other girls Carlito has stashed somewhere.”

“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” He pondered. “Exactly how big is this whole thing?” They sat in silence again, but this time not as long.

There was a question that Jenny had been wanting to ask him for a while. And now seemed like the perfect time. Jenny bit her bottom lip. “Are you ever going to disclose your source?” She asked him, raising her gaze to meet his once again. “How you got a hold of the web address and suddenly knew who to talk to and where to meet?” He dropped his gaze again. “It was Lawrence, wasn’t it?”

Mike looked at her in surprise. “How did you know?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because one minute, Lawrence was sitting in the back of a cop car, and the next he was gone. Nowhere to be seen. And just by coincidence, you had vanished into thin air too. It wasn’t that hard to deduce.” He had to admit, that was a pretty solid deduction. “How did you do it? How did you get him talk?”

He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his neck pensively. “I didn’t think it through. I’ll admit that. I just wanted to hide him from the potential mole and see if he knew anything. When he wasn’t talking, we had to resort to drastic measures.”

“We?”

Mike hesitated, regretting letting that detail slip. “Briggs and I.” Jenny leaned back in her chair as he continued. “Lawrence was 16 years sober. He had worked hard for that. And it was something he definitely was proud of. So when I approached Paul to help me out, he knew there was only one way to get him to talk. We wrapped a towel around his head and poured booze over it. It didn’t take that long before he started spilling his guts with all the information.” He looked over at her, and saw the horror on her face. “I knew how badly you wanted to find Paige. And I knew that every minute counted. But… I just didn’t see any other way.”

In a million years, she would have never guessed that her brother or Mike would resort to such drastic measures. Jenny closed the package of Oreos and started to stand up. “You know, I’m actually not hungry anymore.”

“Jenny, wait.” He grabbed her hands and held on tight. The desperation in his face and voice was very apparent. “Please, don’t walk away right now. I need to talk about this with someone.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head and wrenched her hands free from him. “I can’t be that person for you, Mike.”

“Yes, you can. And you are.” He stood up and pleaded with his eyes. “I can’t do any of this without you.”

“Mike, stop it!” She demanded, throwing the package of cookies on the floor. “Stop acting like this is freakin’ Romeo and Juliet. You don’t need me and I don’t need you.”

“But, Jenny, _you_ are the reason why I am staying. _You_ are the reason why I went after Lawrence.”

“No, I am not responsible for that.”

“I’m not saying you are. I know I did that and I am sorry, okay?” His damn puppy eyes were forming tears in the corners.

“It’s not good enough, Mike.” Jenny cried, tears already flowing freely down her cheeks. “You... you tortured him. And not only that, but my own brother…” Her voice gave out at the thought of them doing such horrific acts.

“I know, I know.” He cupped her face and tried to wipe away some of her tears. “But I just set him free. He’s gone now.”

She rested a hand on his chest. “I just need some space right now.”

“No, please.”

“Mike, stop. I need some time to think about… everything. So much has been happening lately, and it’s just too overwhelming right now.”

He let go of her and took a step back. “So you don’t like me anymore?”

“Don’t be so dramatic…”

“No, if I’m hearing you correctly, then you want to call things off. Never mind all the things I have done.” He felt his sadness quickly turning to anger.

She grunted in frustration. “Would you just stop your wallowing for two seconds? Don’t you understand? After everything that happened with Paul all those months ago… it’s like I don’t know who you are anymore. You lie, and sneak around, and torture people. No matter how just you might think the cause, it’s… I used to think that I would have stopped at nothing to end this case, but... I just need some time to reevaluate everything.”

Mike nodded slowly, still angry and upset. But it was clear that she had already made up her mind. In truth, he could hardly blame her. He had changed so much, he hardly knew who he was anymore. He hung his head, as she slowly made her way back towards the stairs. Before completely leaving, she stopped and looked back at him. “I still care about you, though,” was the last thing she told him, before flying up the stairs.


	16. Avoidance

Lawrence was decapitated. After Mike had set him free, he was discovered in his home a few hours later, head chopped completely off. Mike was called to the scene and that’s where he met the mole he was chasing. Sid Markham. Head of the LAPD gang task force. After combing over all the officers that had been at garage that night everything literally blew up, he determined Sid was the best possible person who fit the description. He somehow had gotten Paul to go undercover as a cop in Sid’s unit, much to Charlie and Jenny’s worry.

Jenny and Mike had been keeping a wide berth from each other. They would only interact when absolutely necessary. The rest of the house definitely noticed it, but no one was willing to ask. Too much other stuff to deal with at that moment. Mike had instead focused all of his attention on catching Sid and connecting him to Solano. He had kept trying to get warrants for his arrest or to be able to search his house or workspace. But they were all denied, due to lack of solid evidence. He couldn’t help but sneer at the déjà vu he was feeling.

Paige spent most of her time surveilling the compound where she had been kept prisoner. Monitoring and making sure no new developments happened while they tried to wait out what to do next. Jenny often joined her. Mostly because it gave her an excuse to not run into Mike as much.

The morning Paul was going to start his cover, Jenny wasn’t in Sylmar though. She was at the station with Shelby Grant. Well, to be more specific, she was sitting in Grant’s squad car. They were worried that someone sympathetic towards Sid would overhear them, so they met inside the car when they wanted to talk seriously.

“What do you know about Sid Markham?” Jenny asked her.

Shelby winced. “He’s got a real boy’s club over in the gang task force. Not saying that he doesn’t have women, too, but they are basically their own little cult. Personally, I haven’t had much interaction with the guy, but his reputation is mostly sparkling amongst officers. He’s taken down several top-dogs during his reign of terror.”

Jenny listened intently. “So does everyone know that he’s also dirty?”

“Well, there have been murmurs about it. But it’s widely recognized as being something you don’t talk about too loudly. Sid has a loyal pack of dogs, and no one really wants to cross paths with them.”

“Do you think you would be able to get in there and keep an eye on Paul while he’s under?”

Shelby shook her head. “Not without raising suspicions. But I can try and keep my ear to the ground and see if any scuttlebutt comes my way.”

“Thanks, Shelbs.” Jenny grabbed a hold of her friend’s hand.

“Oh, and by the way,” Shelby reached into her glove compartment and withdrew a few papers. “Looked into the M.E. who did Sandy’s autopsy. Turns out it was Phil Kesterson.”

“And why is that significant?”

“Well, because Kesterson is Sid’s trusty M.E. Sid has requested him for several different autopsies, and for Sandy, Kesterson reportedly volunteered to look her over.”

“So you think he doctored her toxicology?” Jenny asked, scanning over the pages Shelby had on Kesterson.

“I’ve always gotten a slimy vibe from him. I wouldn’t exactly put it past him. And knowing that Sid has him on retainer, I think it’s pretty likely.”

“Could we get a second opinion or rather a second autopsy?”

“Sandy was just released to the funeral home. Her funeral is next week. If we want to get her back, we need to notify the parents and get their permission.”

Jenny rubbed her face as she thought about all the aspects of her case. “Jesus Christ, and we’re still nowhere close to finding out what happened to Sandy.”

“Sergeant says that Greg killed her. He’s even in the process of shutting down the case.” Shelby said solemnly.

“Good thing, I’m a freelancer and don’t answer to any sergeant.” Jenny commented. “Okay, so if Sandy seized because of a ruptured balloon, then the question is why. According to Paige, they made her upchuck the second she got to the compound. Why would they just leave it in her?”

“Well, I also found out through some digging that there have been a lot of girls in the surrounding area, most of which are from Eastern Europe, are dying from seizures. Maybe they’re trying to kill them off.”

“Yeah, but why?” Jenny pressed. “They’ve gone through all the trouble of kidnapping and beating them. Why do all that just to kill them?”

Shelby shook her head, as her phone rang. “Oh, jeez. I gotta go. Sergeant is looking for me. I’ll try to keep an eye on Paul, though.”

Jenny nodded. “And I’ll try to crack his Sandy case if it kills me.” The two of them parted ways, as Jenny tried to go over everything in her mind. It was pretty clear that Mike’s theory about Sid was becoming less and less of a theory the more she looked into it. She would have to go digging into his personnel files to find out more, but it really begged the question if he was responsible for Sandy’s death or the barrels setting on fire or anything. She had to fight the urge to call Mike to talk things out. He would have been her first phone call only a week ago. But she had to keep herself at a distance from him. For both of their sakes.

Instead, Jenny dialed Johnny’s number. He won’t be up to anything anyways. “What do you want?” He asked when he picked up the phone.

“Jeez, a better attitude at least.” Jenny teased as she drove from the station back to Graceland. “Why you so testy?”

“I’m on my way to Lucia’s house.”

“You what?” She gasped and nearly drove the car off the road. After the barrels at the garage had gone up in flames, Carlito had disappeared, most likely to Mexico. But his sister, Lucia, was still in town. “Why are you going there? I thought she isn’t involved in the family business.”

“She’s not.” He answered. “But Mike wants me to see if she give me any info on where Carlito might be hiding or they’ve restarted the buses.”

“Of course, he does.” She muttered. “Well, be careful, okay? Just because she doesn’t want to be involved, it doesn’t mean that she’s not dangerous.”

“Yeah, yeah. So what’s up?”

Jenny sighed. “I need to bounce ideas off someone.”

“Why not Mikey?”

“Because I’m asking you. You’re welcome.” She snapped. Everyone in the house had suspected that Mike and Jenny had called things off, but no one had been able to get a definitive answer from either of them. “So, this Sid guy. He may or may not have doctored my dead girl’s toxicology report to hide the fact that she seized on heroin in her stomach. But the question I have is… why did she seize at all?”

“Maybe they missed a spot?” Johnny suggested.

“Come on, you heard Paige. They practically gutted her the second she got to there. They wouldn’t be so careless unless they wanted to be.”

“So then, they wanted to be.”

“Yeah, but why? They had gone through all the trouble of grabbing these girls and selling them on douchebag ebay. So why stuff them with the H on their way out the door?”

Johnny paused as he thought about it. “Well, there was this one store in my old neighborhood who would sell these used Gameboys and shit.”

“Johnny, is there a point to this story?” Jenny asked, already annoyed.

“Hey, it’s rude to interrupt. Anyway, the Gameboys would always break down like a day after buying them. Turns out the old man running the shop would sell them when they were on their last legs and then have a hard ‘no return’ policy.”

She nodded her head, as she finally understood. “So you think these bastards are doing the same thing?”

“Well, if Sid is making it so they’re dying of seizures and natural causes, then the johns can’t come back to them demanding their money back, can they?”

“You may have a point.”

“I’m sorry, what was that? I didn’t hear you.” She could hear the smile spread across his face.

“Goodbye, Johnny.” She hung up the phone, thinking about his words the whole rest of the way home.

>>>

Jenny spent most of the rest of the day digging up dirt on Sid Markham and looking into the seemingly natural deaths of the Eastern European girls in the area. Sid was married with a kid, which had surprised her. Hard to believe this guy, who was compliant and rubbing elbows with sex traffickers and gang bangers during the day, would come home to a home-cooked meal and help his kid with his math homework. And there were quite a few girls in the area who had reportedly died of natural causes, every single one of the bodies examined by Kesterson. Jenny could tell that something fishy was going on, but she couldn’t exactly prove any of it. It was still very circumstantial.

As she sat in her room, letting all the facts and details of the case boil in her brain, she heard a voice in the hallway. Eager to think about anything else, she rose and stuck her head out the door. Unfortunately, she saw Mike on the phone, pacing back and forth in the hall. “Any signs of where they went?” He asked, his voice strained. Jenny wanted to retreat back in her room, but something told her to stay put. “Okay, okay. Yeah, I’ll be there soon.”

“What’s going on?” Jenny asked as he hung up the phone.

Mike looked surprised that she was standing there, or even talking to him. But he shook it off quickly. “There’s been a few bodies discovered at Lucia Solano’s house.”

“What?” Jenny grew instantly worried. “But Johnny’s…”

“Don’t worry, he’s fine.” He assured her. “In the sense that none of the bodies are his, but Lucia and Johnny have sort of dropped off the grid.”

“Where would they have gone?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” He took a step towards the stairs, but stopped. He looked at her awkwardly. “Did you… did you want to come with me?”

Jenny stopped herself from saying ‘yes’. “No, that’s fine. I’ll man the fort. See if I can find anything on my end.”

Mike nodded and quickly descended the stairs. Jenny had to breathe out a sigh of relief. The sigh repeated itself when a few seconds later, she received a call from Johnny.

>>>

“You ever heard of Door Dash?” Jenny jabbed at Johnny, as he made his way to her car. When he had called her, he explained that he was hiding out at his mom’s place and asked if she could bring him a change of clothes. He wanted to lay low in case the Solanos were going to blame him for the massacre at Lucia’s place. “I ain’t no delivery driver, Johnny. You can at least tip me.”

“Thanks, Jenn. I couldn’t get away.” Johnny reached into the car through her rolled down passenger window and looked through the sack of clothes she had packed for him.

She put the car in park and turned her body to face him. “Whatever. I’m just glad you’re okay. What was up with that Solano bloodbath?”

“Yeah, dude. That shit was crazy. I showed up and these guys with guns grabbed me. They were looking for some guns or whatever. Then we had to wait for Solano’s cleaner, which took forever. Then when he finally showed up, they all shot each other. I don’t even know what all happened. We barely made it out of there.”

“I’m glad you did. So did Lucia head back down to Mexico? Run to her pops for protection?”

“Huh?” He pretended to be distracted with digging through his sack, but Jenny was no idiot. And despite being an undercover agent, Johnny tended to be a rotten liar.

“Johnny, look at me.” She demanded. “Lucia is heading down to Mexico, right?” Johnny’s mouth moved, but no words came out. The nervous look in his eye was unmistakable. Jenny shook her head. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t just leave her there, Jenny.” Johnny argued.

“Where is she?” Again, another nervous look told her everything she needed to know. “Wait, she’s here? Johnny!”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“This is not like taking a stray dog home, man. You’re putting your mom in serious danger right now. Is that what you want?”

“What was I supposed to do, Jenny?” He repeated defensively. He knew it wasn’t the best choice, but it was one of the few things he could think of. “I couldn’t take her to Graceland. I couldn’t take her to a hotel.”

Jenny rested her forehead against the wheel for a moment. “You cannot mix life and work, Johnny, especially with something like this.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” He muttered, avoiding her gaze.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You and Mike.”

Jenny stared at him incredulously. “Do you like her?” He didn’t answer her again. She ran a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ, Johnny.”

Johnny rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t really know okay. Can you let me figure this out?”

“Can you not lead dick first into something as big as this? Listen to me, if she is an asset, you can’t get involved. Period.”

“Well, you and Mike have been messing around since the beginning.”

Jenny was not about to take the bait. Besides, Mike and her were no longer a thing. “Don’t even try to flip this around on me, okay. Because they are not the same. So you rent her a car, put her on a train, sit her in a boat, or freakin’ piggyback her all the way to the Mexican border. I don’t care what you do, Johnny. Just get rid of her.”

He nodded and started to stand up straight. “Alright.”

“Get rid of her, Johnny.” She repeated in a scolding voice.

“Okay, I heard you. Thanks for the delivery.” Johnny took the sack of clothes into his mother’s house, as Jenny watched him go. Johnny had always been a Casanova of sorts. That was not new. But he had never expressed interest in a girl on a case. And this wasn’t just any girl, this was the daughter and sister that belonged to a very dangerous cartel. Only disaster could come from him getting involved. Jenny wanted to storm in the house and drag him out by the ear, stopping him from trying anything. But she couldn’t without blowing his cover or alerting his mother.

“Goddammit, Johnny. Don’t screw this up.” She muttered as she pulled away from the house.


	17. Rank

Paige pounded down Jenny’s door early in the morning, startling Jenny awake. “Goddammit, I’m getting seventeen locks put on that door, I swear.” Jenny was tired of being woken up by her roommates.

“What you got on the website?” Paige demanded, sitting down on Jenny’s bed.

“Well, hold on, let me look it up.” Jenny laid on her back and mimed opening an imaginary laptop and added fidgeted her fingers over imaginary keys. “Oh, looks like nothing. Okay, good night, Paige.” She rolled over to try and give her the subtle hint.

But Paige was leaving. She shook Jenny’s leg persistently. “What happened to working tirelessly to bagging these bastards?”

“What happened to sleep?” Jenny countered, opening her eyes enough to peak at her friend, noting the bags under her eyes. “Speaking of, when was the last time you caught a wink?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. In truth, since getting out of the compound, she had barely slept at all. Nightmares of being trapped with Sulla plagued her. “Mike still won’t do anything to shut down Sulla’s operation, even after we got him on the phone talking to Carlito directly.”

Jenny propped herself up. “You what?”

“If I go pour you a cup of coffee, will you get up and work with me on this? Please, Jenn.” She gave her a pleading and desperate look.

Jenny rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky I love you.” Plus, she would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious to hear what Paige had caught.

After a large cup of coffee and lots of encouragement from Paige, Jenny was able to wake up enough to listen the audio recording of Sulla and Carlito talking. From what she could tell, it didn’t sound like either of them were happy with each other. And they were both feeling a little paranoid of the Bureau looming over them. Jenny wasn’t about to mention it to Paige, considering how close she was to the case, but Mike was right not to shut down the operation just yet. The phone call alone didn’t prove much, only that Sulla and Carlito knew each other. It would not be enough for a conviction.

“So, I’ve told Mike that he’s going to have to buy all the girls,” Paige explained to Jenny as she gulped the last bit of coffee down her throat. “Which I have calculated to be $1.5 million, if he is so hell-bent on keeping that place open. But what I want to know is there anything on the site that we can use to help convince Mike to shut it down.”

Jenny sighed and pulled up the site for the two of them to see. “You know how I told you before that the dark web is full of paranoid people? Well it’s very true. These guys have evolved to be slippery and almost undetectable.”

“Yeah, but we have their precious address. Can’t we dig into their history or something?”

“We could, but I don’t think you want me to.” Jenny pulled up a series of code for Paige to see. “This is basically computer-speak for this site is fortress. They’ve installed some pretty heavy-duty security systems here. If I go poking around, it’ll be like walking in a field of armed land mines. I might be able to get into it, but we’re risking them finding out and pulling the plug on the site again.”

Paige chewed on a pencil as she thought. She was tired of constantly coming up short with these guys. And Lina was still in there. “What if we act as a buyer? Can we send messages to them to let them know we’re interested in their inventory?”

“Another land mine field.” Jenny shook her head. “Each one of these sites basically has their own language. Meaning if we punctuate a sentence wrong, they can shut down the whole thing.”

“Goddammit, Jenny.” Paige slammed a fist on Jenny’s desk. “Then how are we supposed to get Lina out of there?” She felt ashamed for lashing out at her, but she was past the point of caring anymore. There was too much at stake for pleasant niceties.

Jenny rubbed her friend’s shoulder gently. “I’m sorry. But you said… Mike’s going to buy them all, right?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t stop these assholes from getting a new shipment in.” Paige tried to blink away tears.

“I know. I don’t like it either. But we want to bring all this tumbling to the ground, we got to keep searching. The more evidence we get, the better the sentencing these guys get.”

“But that’s not even good enough anymore.” Paige snapped at her. “I don’t want these guys to sit in a jail cell, I want them to suffer and…” As the words left her mouth, they scared her. Jenny hugged her friend close, hoping provide what little comfort she could. Jenny was also getting sick and tired of losing to these guys. She had to do something. For Paige’s sake.

>>>

Jenny caught Johnny sneaking off to his room from the bathroom, just as Mike left the same room and went towards the phone room. Mike had been explaining to Johnny that he wanted him to convince the Solanos to restart their contraband trade over the border using methods that the Bureau suggested. That way it would be easier to catch them in the act and tie everything together. Johnny had tried to refuse to use Lucia to get to Carlito or their father. But Jakes and Mike outvoted him.

Johnny tried to close the door, but Jenny caught it. “Is Lucia still at your mom’s place?” Jenny asked, as he sank onto his bed.

“Can I just have a moment to myself please?” He asked.

“Answer the questions, Johnny.” She wasn’t about to let it go. With the way they had left things, she wanted to be sure that he had listened to her. What she didn’t notice was Jakes coming behind her. He started to suspect something was up by the way Johnny had been acting.

“Yeah,” Johnny mumbled into his hands, as he rubbed his face in thought.

“Well, that’s just beautiful, isn’t it?” Jenny scoffed, anger rising in her like an erupting volcano.

“Did you sleep with Lucia, Johnny?” Dale asked, as he fully entered the room, taking both Johnny and Jenny by surprise. But when Jenny had processed the question, she looked back at Johnny.

“Do I look stupid to you?” Johnny challenged, but immediately regretted it. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

“Goddammit, Johnny.” She cursed, regretting not storming into his mom’s house the night before.

“She’s a cartel-connected subject of a federal investigation.” Dale spoke low and menacing, locking eyes on Johnny.

“She kind of stopped being a subject a while ago, man.” Johnny shrugged.

“So you screwed her?” Jenny questioned.

“Yeah, I did.” He finally admitted, as she clenched her fists at her side. “So what?”

“So what?” Jenny tried her best not to scream, not wanting to draw the attention of Mike.

Dale stepped towards him, also making sure to lower his voice.“Best case scenario, Johnny, you’re on the stand sending her father and brother to the gas-chamber. Best case.”

“I told you to get rid of her.” Jenny scolded him. “I told you not to lead dick first for once in your life.”

“Did you blow your cover?” Dale asked him.

“No.” He answered, looking over both Jenny and Jakes’ shoulder, seeing Mike making his way towards them while adjusting an expensive watch on his wrist. “This stays between us.”

Before Jenny and Jakes could ask him what he meant, Mike entered the room. Jenny clenched her fists still, but tried to act casual in front of Mike. “What’d I miss?” Mike asked, noting the tension in the room.

“Talking.” Dale shrugged. They all knew that Mike would not be happy if he found out that Johnny was sleeping with Lucia. So they kept tight-lipped.

“I’m going to see Sulla.” Mike announced, after finishing adjusting his watch. He was too focused on the mission at hand to sniff out their obviously suspicious behavior.

“Going to buy the girls for Paige?” Jenny couldn’t help but ask.

He shrugged. “She didn’t really give me much a of choice. But… I think I might have figured out how to get Lucia to go down to Mexico with you by her side.” Mike addressed Johnny.

“How’s that?” Johnny put on an innocent look as best he could.

“I’m going to make her a person of interest in a triple homicide.” He stated plainly, before walking out of the room. Johnny bit his tongue. Was he really going to imply that Lucia was responsible for the deaths in her own home?

Dale and Jenny both shook their heads at Johnny. Dale exited the room quickly, needing to take himself far away from Johnny. “How did you ever fall for a guy like that?” Johnny asked Jenny.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “Well at least someone’s doing their job.” She pointed a finger in his face. “You need to fix this. And by fix it, I mean, no more sleepovers. You got me?” Johnny tried to turn away, but she grabbed a hold of his chin to make him face her again. “One and done, Johnny.”

“Okay, chill.” He pulled himself out of her grip. Jenny stomped out of his room, longing for the days when he was just an annoying kid.

>>>

As Jenny needed any other reason to believe that she was having a shitty day. She nearly dropped the phone as Shelby Grant told her that Greg Thompson was pleading guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Sandy Harding. “He did what?”

“I know.” Shelby shook her head. “I just about fainted when I heard it, too.”

“So, what does this mean for his trial?”

“Well, with the new plea they entered, the judge is going to give his sentencing by the end of the week. But that’s not the only thing I thought would interest you.”

Jenny could practically feel her brain doing backflips. “Jesus, Shelbs, what else is there?”

Grant smiled into the phone. “I just happened to look over Greg’s visitor logs. Looks you weren’t the only who paid him a visit recently.”

“Who was it?”

“Our good friend.”

“Sid? He knew Greg?”

Shelby looked over the visitor’s log, reporting her findings. “According to the logs, they had a lengthy conversation just yesterday. So is it coincidence that Greg changed his story after he met with him?”

“Not a chance. Thanks, Shelbs.” Jenny hung up the phone and made a rash and probably stupid decision.

She hopped in her car and sped down to the station where Sid Markham had his office set up. Logic and reason should have been enough to deter her from going up to him. But logic and reason were not in her vocabulary at that moment. White hot rage was. How dare he try to intimidate a witness to her case. As she stormed into the building, a quick scan was able to direct her to the man in the back office. The largest one in the whole room.

Sid was a sandy-gray haired man, that Jenny recognized from her brief search into his past. Even in his movements and swagger, she could tell that this guy that he was tough shit. She braced herself as she blew past the milling officers in the bull pen, and throwing open Sid’s office door. “Sid Markham, I presume?” She demanded, as he leapt back in surprise.

The man looked her over in confusion, a hand instinctively reaching for his gun. “Who the hell are you?”

“Agent Jenny Briggs with the FBI.” She flashed her badge quickly, so he didn’t shoot her.

Upon seeing her badge, he rolled his eyes. “Jeez, so now Warren’s sending in his dogs to intimidate me?”

Jenny’s ears couldn’t help but perk up at the mention of the name. “Warren. As in Mike Warren?”

“Yeah, you can spare me the shake down, alright?” Sid leaned against a desk and crossed his arms across his chest. “He already tried to ruffle my feathers and taunt me. It didn’t work with him, and it’s certainly not going to work with you, sweetheart. You ain’t got nothing on me.”

She forced herself to sidestep the “sweetheart” comment, and instead focused on the more important part of what he said. “Mike confronted you?” She knew that talking to Sid now was stupid, but Mike doing something this reckless just seemed out of character.

Markham looked her over. “You’re not with Warren?”

 _Arguably, I never was._ “We are acquainted, but that is not why I am here.” Jenny cleared her throat. “I was working the Sandy Harding case. And I just found out that Greg Thompson is changing his plea to guilty for her murder and kidnapping.”

It took him a moment to figure out what she was talking about. He also still didn’t buy that she was not with Warren. “What does that have to do with me?”

“You tell me, Mr. Markham.” Jenny placed her hands on her hips. “You met with Greg yesterday, right?”

“He used to run with some of the lower level street crews in town.” He shrugged.

“I want to know what you said to him. I want to know why he went from insisting that he never killed her to confessing to the whole thing in less than 24 hours.”

Sid smirked. “Sweetie, you’re cute and all, but…”

“I am goddamn FBI agent.” Jenny retorted. “You will refer to me as Agent or Agent Briggs. No variations, you got it?”

He held up his hands in surrender, his smile still very much on display. “Alright, whatever you say. I didn’t say nothing to Thompson, and he didn’t say nothing to me.”

“So it’s just coincidence that mere hours after chatting with you, he recanted everything?”

“Are you accusing me of something, _Agent_?” He slowly took a couple steps towards her. He behaved as though they were playing some sort of game. “Because, surely, you would have some sort of proof to back up such accusations, right?”

Jenny set her jaw, as she tried to fight the urge to punch him in the face. “I am merely asking a question.” She stated as coolly as possible. “As a professional courtesy."

“Well, I believe that I have already answered your question then.” Sid gave her a fake regretful look. “So let me tell you the same thing I told your acquaintance, Mike Warren: come back with proof or get out of my office.” He then turned his focus to his desk, sifting through papers and case files, indicating that he was done with the conversation. Jenny clenched her fists and pushed herself out of the office. No good was going to come from her staying a moment longer. “Until we meet again, sweetheart!” He called after, as she made a hasty exit. When she made to her car, she beat her fists against the steering wheel and screamed like a madwoman.

>>>

“You talked to Sid?” Jenny asked Mike, who was in his room at his computer. When she had flung open the door, he was only a little startled. With Jenny, you almost had to get used to the abrupt meetings.

“Who told you that?” He sighed, lowering the screen of his computer. He had only told Charlie and Briggs that he had confronted Sid about knowing he was a dirty cop.

“Sid.” She replied, placing her hands on her hips.

He looked up at her in concern. “ _You_ talked to Sid?”

“Yeah, he convinced my guy on the Harding case to plead guilty to kidnapping and murder, which he did not do. But when I showed up there…”

“Jesus, Jenny, you went to his office?” Mike stood up. “Paul is under with Sid, you might have just compromised…”

“Relax, genius. I’m not an idiot.” Jenny snapped. “I am well aware that Paul is under with that misogynistic scumbag. No, he was not there when I was, and no one seemed to recognize me.”

“Yeah, but what if they look you up? That will inevitably lead to finding out you have brother…”

Jenny rolled her eyes. He really ought to give her more credit sometimes. “Mike, shut up. This ain’t my first rodeo. Yes, my file will say that I have a brother named Paul Briggs. Which is why I have temporarily changed his photo ID in the database with Zelanski’s. I even have a few contacts in the upper part of the food chain on retainer in case someone really goes digging into it. You happy?”

Mike let a quick breath of relief. But he still was furious with her. “Well, it was still stupid of you to confront him. He’s a dangerous guy, Jenn.”

“Yeah, which is why I’m confused that when I got there, the first question he asked me was if I was with you.” Jenny shot back. “I don’t know if you’ve ever played poker before, Mike, but here’s a helpful hint: you don’t show your opponent your cards before placing down a bet.”

“I wanted to spook him.” Mike explained. “He’s been thinking he’s been getting away with a lot lately, and I thought putting some pressure on him would force him to make a mistake.”

“No, you are going full pedal-to-the-metal, and it’s dangerous. Not only for you, but for Paul, and everyone else here. Paige just told me that you aren’t buying the girls anymore.”

He shuddered. He had gone to see Sulla earlier, but Sulla had refused him. He had even showed Mike his brother, who was in a coma after his boss beat him for fun. Sulla was not about to lose the girls. “Sulla’s not selling. I tried, but…”

“So then, how are you going to protect those girls, Mike?” Jenny asked him. “Or are they not the priority anymore? Is it all just really centered around Sid and Solano?”

“I don’t know what you want from me.” He cried out in frustration. “I am trying to bring it all to the ground the best way that I know how. There are a lot of moving parts in this case, Jenny. It’s not just the girls.”

“I know that.” Jenny rubbed her temples. “But what I want to know is, when is this going to end? When are we finally going to get justice for anyone? When will it be good enough for you?”

Mike stared down at the ground and thought. It was true that he had poured everything into this case, being more intense than before. Some part of it could be placed on Jenny ending things with him. When they were together, she was able to keep him in a more balanced mindset. But now, it seemed too hard to even work with her anymore. “You know, I think it is time to have this conversation.” Mike set his jaw firmly and looked at Jenny. “I am the head of this case. I am going to make decisions that you don’t like. And you cannot keep being insubordinate.”

Jenny was shocked, to say the least. “ _Insubordinate_? Because I’m not blindly following your orders? Or because I’m not screwing you anymore?”

“That’s not what this is about. This is about you needing to follow the chain of command here. You do not have to agree with all the orders I give, but you do have to follow them if you are going to continue to work on this case.”

Jenny sucked in a hot, rageful breath. “Well, I guess that gives me a lot to think about. Doesn’t it?” Without another word, she hastily left his room, slamming the door behind her.


	18. Fly

Paul stared at himself in the mirror, trying to patch up the bloody lip Kelly Badillo had given him. He had spent most of the day at his old apartment he used to stash heroin for when he was Odin Rossi. But now instead of drugs, he was stashing Kelly, the widow of the man he had killed. She had swallowed a bottle of pills and washed them down with booze and he had to nurse her back to health, while being under the watchful eye of Sid and his guard dogs. Kelly had asked Paul what happened to Juan, only to strike him and yell at him. Now, his lip bled and he felt more shame and guilt than when he had killed Juan. It had all been accident before. But now, everything was a choice. Everything just felt like the wrong choice.

“Jesus, what happened?” Jenny had snuck into the bathroom, while he was lost in thought, and saw the blood on the corner of his mouth. She ran up to him and tried to examine it, grabbing a hold of his chin.

“I’m fine, Jenn.” He assured her. “Chased a guy out of a window today that’s all.” A small lie to cover up the big truth; that was Paul’s go-to.

“Did Sid make you do that?” She asked, still worried about him.

“No, you know me. I go a little too hard sometimes.” He placed some anti-bacterial cream on the wound. “Besides, I could have much worse than a busted lip, you know.”

“Well, I still don’t like the idea of you being around that douchebag.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Well, tough.” She poked his chest playfully. “I’m your sister. That’s my job.”

Paul took a breath and leaned against the sink, ready to think about literally anything else but Kelly. “So, as your brother, can you ask you about what it is between you and Warren?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “How long you been hanging on to that?”

“You think you guys are so sneaky, but we have no secrets in this house.” Briggs pushed further. “We know when you’re up and we do know when you’re down. And you have barely looked at him in days. So what’s up? Is it all about that compound in Sylmar?”

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. She knew that no one else was home yet, besides Charlie, who had turned in early. But still, this was only a conversation between siblings, not housemates. “It came down to trust, that’s all.” She answered.

He gave her a look. “What, you don’t trust him?”

“I don’t know.” Of course, he had lied to her about sleeping with Agent Foster. But that was not really the only thing that bothered her. “He’s just been so… crazy about this Solano thing, and it’s compromised almost everything about him.”

Her brother nodded. He had noticed how different Mike was acting since getting back from D.C. And how different he had been acting since the two of them split. “So why not stay with him and point him down the straight and narrow?”

“Because that’s not my job, Paul.” She sighed. “I’m not his keeper, and besides, he’s so annoyingly stubborn, he barely listens to me anyway. And it’s just… really making me question a lot of things.”

Paul squinted at her. “Are you thinking about leaving Graceland?”

Jenny hushed him. “I don’t know, Paul. It’s just… I’m making no headway with this Harding case, and Mike is acting like a complete tool and… it’s getting really hard for me to find a reason to stay.”

He stood up fully in front of her. “Let me be your reason.”

“Paul, don’t be cheesy.”

“No, at least for the time being. I need you, sis.”

“You have Charlie.”

“Yeah, and I also have you. I’m balanced out then.” He countered. Then, he placed his hands on his sister’s shoulders. “Look, Jenn. I know you have feelings for Mikey. Don’t deny it, because I know it’s true. But I don’t want that to be the reason why you split. See this Harding case through. Bring justice to that poor girl’s family. Then, you can decide what to do.”

Jenny felt the corner of eyes sting with tears. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get justice for Sandy anymore.”

“You will.” Paul pulled Jenny into a tight hug, placing a kiss on top of her head. They both needed that hug more than either of them realized. So the two of them just stood there for a while, clinging close to their sibling and praying for their hurt to go away.

>>>

“I forgot how boring stake outs are.” Jenny whined, as she adjusted herself in the car seat. Her and Paige were sitting in a van watching the compound where Paige had once been held and currently housed several girls being forced into sex trade. Jenny, needing an excuse to try and convince herself to stay on the case, decided to keep Paige some company on her daily stake outs.

“You don’t have to be here, Jenn.” Paige told her, her gaze transfixed on the crumbling building.

“I know. But it’s where I want to be right now.” She sighed, as weird as it was to admit. Mike had volunteered to buy all the girls in the compound from Sulla. As Sulla waited for more girls to be shipped in by Solano, Mike had volunteered to stay at the compound, to ensure that his “merchandise” meaning the girls, stayed in mint condition. It was a ridiculous call, in Jenny’s opinion, but at least it gave them eyes on the inside. He was also working on wiring the place with audio equipment for them to listen in on what happened.

Paige looked at her watch on her wrist. “They’ll be waking up the girls by now.”

Jenny glanced over at her solemnly. “I can’t imagine…”

“Jenny, we’ve talked about this.” She snapped. “I’m not talking about what happened anymore. Not until those girls are out of there.” They sat in silence, sipping at their terrible gas station coffees and feeling the evilness that hung in the air. Jenny had only been a part of these stake outs for a couple days now, but Paige had been there everyday since she got out. No wonder Paige was always on edge. “Are you still with Mike?” Paige’s question took her by surprise.

“What?”

“Are you still screwing Mike or not?”

“Oh, so I’m not allowed to dig into your shit, but you expect me to show the world mine?” Jenny countered.

“You already know my shit, Jenny.” She turned her head to face her. “Please tell me you dumped his ass.”

She hefted a big sigh. “To dump someone implies that there was something there to dump. And honestly, I couldn’t tell you if there was or not.”

“So is that why Mike has been so much of an asshole lately?”

“How can you tell the difference?” Jenny muttered. He had been behaving like an asshole for so long, it was hard to distinguish exactly what she was referring to.

“He would listen to reason at least when you two were together.” Paige explained. “Now, he’s just waving his authority around and using these girls as chess pieces.”

Jenny knitted her eyebrows together. “Are you trying to imply that it’s my fault that this place is still running?”

“No, it’s Mike’s. I know that.” She acknowledged. “He’s just so far up his own ass, I don’t know what it’s going to take to get him to stop and think about any of these girls as human beings.”

Jenny didn’t answer, because she didn’t know the answer. And that was the scary part. A few hours later, they met up with Mike at a secondary location, to get an update on how life was going on the inside of the sex ring. When Paige and Jenny pulled up to Mike’s car, they found him slumped against the back of his seat. Even though he wore sunglasses, they both knew he was fast asleep. Paige pounded on the car door, startling him awake. “Morning, sleeping beauty.” She joked.

“You look like shit.” Jenny remarked, looking over the scruff that was forming around his chin, which was normally clean shaven, and the unkempt hair.

Mike groaned and took off his sunglasses to rub his eyes. “Haven’t been getting much sleep lately.” Jenny could see dark circles under his eyes. He really did look like shit. “We up on sound yet?”

“Nearly done getting things set up.” Jenny replied.

“But you have a lot more ground to cover, Mike.” Paige added. “You need to cover the entire building.”

Mike nodded and slipped his sunglasses back on. “Sulla said that Carlito is reopening up the pipelines. Don’t know exactly what that means, but Sulla said it has something to do with cruise ships. So whenever Johnny calls, you can tell him.” Jenny had a chill run down her spine as she remembered that Johnny was down in Mexico staying with the Solanos.

“Yeah, I’ll let him know.” Paige stormed off towards the car. Jenny lingered behind, still looking over his disheveled appearance.

Mike glanced up at her only for a moment. “I want this over as badly as you do.”

Jenny leaned down and rested her hands on the window. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. You look terrible.”

He shrugged. “Sulla doesn’t exactly have a spa installed at the compound.”

“Did he tell you when to expect these new shipments of girls?”

“Not yet. But I can find out.” He fixed his gaze forward, so he didn’t have to look directly at her. It was still too hard for him to be around her at all.

“You familiar with the story of Icarus, Mike?” Jenny asked him.

“Yeah, it’s the one where the guy flew too close to the sun and his wings caught on fire, causing him to plummet to his death.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of.” Jenny then felt it was time to go back to the car where Paige was waiting.

>>>

“Cruise ships?” Johnny repeated into the phone, as Jenny was filling him in on the information Mike had given. Needing to stretch her legs from the stake out, she took a walk away from the car, careful to be hidden out of sight from the compound.

“That’s what Sulla said.” Jenny shrugged, as she kicked at a rock in the road. “You hear anything about that?”

“We just got here late last night, so I haven’t even met their father.” Johnny answered. He looked out from his balcony where he stood, that overlooked the sprawling Solano estate. It was a beautiful piece of property, there was no doubt about that. Apparently, being the head of a major drug cartel wasn’t all bad. “But I’ll be sure to keep an ear open.”

“Remember that Jakes is working on getting planes set up. You think you can find a way to persuade Solano to invest in some metal birds?”

Johnny scoffed into the phone. “Girl, who you talking to?”

Jenny glanced over her shoulder to make sure Paige was still in the car. She was. “And are you keeping it in your pants?”

“Jenny, come on.” He rolled his eyes. “I am an adult, you know.”

“Okay, you lost clout the second you stuck it to Lucia, and you know it.” She scolded. “Please, tell me you haven’t…”

“Nothing’s happened. Relax.”

“What about Carlito? He still barking up your tree?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been able to keep him away for now.” One of the maids informed him that breakfast was being served then. “Oh, Jenny, I gotta go.”

“Please, be careful, Johnny. If you run into any trouble, you call me. You got me?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Don’t ‘yeah, yeah’ me. I told you that I’m not about to pick up in a body bag, and I intend to keep that promise.”

“You love me that much?” He joked.

Jenny rolled her eyes, as she pictured his wide, dopey smile. “Don’t remind me.”

>>>

After a long day of staking out the compound, Paige had finally fallen asleep. Only after Jenny had sworn up and down that she would stay awake and keep watch, ready to wake her if any movement stirred from the sleeping compound. The sound of crickets echoed outside, and the dim lights of the building was the only sound and sight. Night had fallen, which meant much cooler temperatures, which Jenny was more than happy about.

She decided to try out the sound equipment and test all the places that Mike had tapped inside the building. Maybe she could be entertained by radio. Not wanting to disturb Paige, she plugged in earbuds and fiddled around on her computer, testing out the various rooms. It was late at night, so there was not a lot of activity that she could find. Until she stumbled upon what sounded like a TV playing in the distance.

As she adjusted the volume, she could hear Mike’s voice. “I’m taking Lina now.” He said, making Jenny practically jump out her seat in the car. But still, she didn’t want to wake Paige unless it was absolutely necessary. She listened in keenly as what she assumed was Sulla tried to stop Mike from taking the girl. From the bravado in his voice, she could tell the man thought very highly of himself and very little of women. The way he talked down to Lina when she tried to beg for her freedom. But she still tried to fight Sulla, Jenny admired that about her. No wonder Paige cared about her so much.

Mike insisted on taking Lina, and Jenny held her breath, practically hearing the tension in the room. Just as she debated on whether or not it was time to wake Paige up, she heard a woman screaming in pain and Mike shouting for someone to stop.

“Stay with me, stay with me!” She heard the urgency in Mike’s voice, followed by faint whimpering. Then a long silence. For what she could tell, someone had just killed Lina. Jenny’s mouth fell open and a single tear fell from her eye. That poor girl had been viciously killed by the worst men humanity had to offer. Paige would be devasted.

As Jenny looked over at the sleeping Paige, she heard another struggle over the mic. After some scuffling and strangled cries, she heard, “Shoot him.”

“No,” Mike’s voice interrupted. “You shoot me, you don’t get the money.” Jenny felt like marching into the compound at that moment, ready to kill every last one of those evil men.

“I don’t care about the money!” Sulla exclaimed.

“A million dollars? Really?” Mike sounded hurt and defeated, but still trying to keep his cover. “You clean this up.”

“It’s your mess.” Sulla grunted. “You take care of it.”

There was sounds of men leaving the room, Jenny guessed that they had left Mike alone to deal with Lina’s body. Tears were flowing freely down her face now. Trafficking was not an easy thing to deal with, but listening to a poor girl’s death at the hands of her abusers. It was a horrific thought.

A light caught the corner of her eye. Paige’s phone, which was sitting in one of the cup holders between Jenny and Paige, was buzzing. Quickly, Jenny grabbed it, trying not to wake Paige, who stirred a little, but remained asleep. When Jenny looked at who was calling her, the caller ID said Mike. That confirmed her suspicions. Lina was dead. Mike wouldn’t be calling Paige for any other reason. Not this late. She heard him dragging something heavy out of the room, and out of the reach of the microphones he had already set up. Jenny ripped the earbuds out of her ears, and tried to steady her breathing quietly.

Paige couldn’t know about Lina. The whole reason she was still working this case at all was because of Lina. If she found out, she was dead, Paige would react violently at Mike, at the compound, at anyone. She could ruin everything. Jenny moved her mouse on her computer and hovered over the delete button. When she pressed it, a screen came up asking if she was sure she permanently wanted to delete the audio they had just captured.

Her finger hovered over the button. How could she not tell Paige? If she found out that Jenny had kept that from her, she would never forgive her. But then again, how could Jenny even begin to tell her what happened? Glancing over at Paige one last time, Jenny clicked and erased the audio of Lina’s death, feeling like the worst person on planet Earth.

But what about Mike? Surely, he wasn’t actually going to tell Paige that Lina was gone. She was already against him keeping that place open for so long, she would not stand for it if she found out what happened. Jenny picked up her phone and sent Mike a text. “I won’t tell, if you won’t.”

Paige startled awake, making Jenny jump up and scream. “Oh, my god, what happened?” Paige looked around wide eyed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jenny questioned, hoping that she truly hadn’t heard or saw anything that just happened.

“Oh, god.” Paige rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Sorry, it must have been a dream.” She looked over at Jenny, who was wiping her eyes dry. “Are you crying?”

“Yeah,” Jenny’s mind raced quickly. “I just watched one of those animals being reunited with owners who were drafted overseas. It always gets to me.” A little lie, but there was no way that Jenny was strong enough to tell Paige the truth.

“You’re supposed to be watching the place.” Paige rolled her eyes and glanced down at her watch. “Oh, we should be meeting the night team now.” She started up the car and drove to the location, as Jenny tried to delete the horrific sounds from her memory. Not as easily done than what it was on the computer.

The two of them were able to meet up with the night team, who were getting set up to watch over the compound to relieve Paige and Jenny. When Paige got a phone call. “Mike, what’s up?” Jenny’s stomach dropped as she watched her friend react to whatever Mike was telling her. A car drove past them, from the brief glance Jenny could see that Mike was driving it. Paige hung up the phone quickly. “Mike’s got Lina in the trunk. Let’s move.”

Even though Jenny was confused, she quietly complied and hopped into the car to meet up with Mike. Had she made a mistake? Was Lina really alive after all? But then who was Mike telling to “stay with him”? Still, she rode silently in the car, as Paige drove to the location Mike gave. Paige told her that Mike claimed that Sulla wanted Lina, so he decided to take her. Lina fought back so he had to stick her in the trunk, as the only way to get her to come. _Please, let that girl be in the trunk. And alive._

As they pulled up to where Mike said to meet them, they both noticed something off. The trunk of Mike’s car was wide open. And that wasn’t all. Mike was crumpled up on the ground not five feet away from the car, unmoving. “Oh, my god.” Jenny gasped, practically leaping out of the car while Paige was still putting it in park. She ran over to him and knelt down beside him. “Mike? Mike, can you hear me?” She shook him, and he groaned slightly.

“Mike, what happened?” Paige, who had just hopped out of the car, came running over.

“Sit up, okay? Slowly, though.” Jenny helped get him to sit and lean against his car. He groaned in pain some more and in the light of Paige’s headlights, Jenny could see a trickle of blood coming from his brow and bruised eye.

“Where’s Lina?” Paige demanded.

“She attacked me.” Mike grunted, as he leaned against the car.

“She weighs 100 pounds, Mike.” Paige pointed out, clearly not believing him. “Are you trying to tell me she overpowered you?”

“I wasn’t ready.” He kicked at the crowbar neither of the women had noticed yet. “I didn’t expect her to come out swinging at me.” Jenny regarded him carefully, trying to detect if he was telling the truth or not.

“We need to mobilize a search team.” Paige stood up. “Which way did she go?”

Mike couldn’t answer. Paige started barking orders into the walkie from the dashboard in the car as Jenny helped Mike up to his feet. “Let me see.” She tried to turn his head into the light so she could examine the damage.

“So, what, now you care about me?” He pushed her away. Mike went to shut the trunk of his car, but not before Jenny glanced inside. One thing was for certain. She had heard Lina get hurt, whether or not she was actually dead. But that meant that she was probably at least bleeding. Mike’s trunk, however, looked perfectly clean. No stains or spots anywhere. He was lying.

As he shut the trunk, he moved towards the driver side of his car. “Where are you going?” Paige questioned, pausing her orders in the walkie.

“I have to get back to Sulla.” He answered.

“No, you have to help me find Lina.”

“Screw that,” Jenny interrupted. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“Lina is not the only girl in there.” Mike reminded both of them, before hopping into the car again.

As Paige finished up trying to rally the troops, Jenny watched Mike pull out of the little parking lot. A few minutes later, she received a text from him. “ _I won’t tell if you won’t.”_


	19. Air

The next couple of days were rough for Paige. She spent nearly every waking moment canvassing and searching for an sign of Lina. She had asked for Jenny to look for street cam footage in the area of the time that she had supposedly ran from Mike, but it had come up empty. If there were any cameras in that area, they were not working properly. It was a rather abandoned part of town anyway. Jenny wondered if Mike knew that before his performance the other night, or if it was just pure luck. As Paige went around town, putting up fliers and interviewing as many people as she could, Jenny volunteered to watch over the compound.

She was still trying to process the events of that fateful night. Hearing Lina die at the hands of the monsters that held her prisoner and selling her off like cattle still haunted her. But then, Mike decided to take that one step further. And for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why.

Until one midday, when Mike was out on a food run for Sulla, he drove to their meet up spot. He was expecting Paige to be in the car with Jenny. But as he got closer to the car, he realized that Jenny was the only one in the car. “Where’s Paige?” He asked when he put his car in park next to hers, both their windows rolled down.

Jenny stared straight ahead at the empty lot. “Out looking for Lina.” She informed him with a bitter tone.

Mike hung his head, and took the sunglasses he was wearing off, fiddling with them in his hands. “You heard through the audio.”

“Yeah.” Jenny nodded solemnly.

“It all happened so fast.” He could practically replay the scene in his head like a movie. “I wanted to get Lina out of there. Sulla was getting too handsy and… I didn’t even see the knife until Lina screamed.” A single tear fell from one of her eyes, which she quickly wiped away. “So, you haven’t showed Paige the audio yet?” Mike asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “And I never will. I deleted it.”

Mike would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you, dumbass.” Jenny finally turned her head to look at him, anger quickly taking over. “I did it for Paige. Because I didn’t want her last memory of that poor girl to be her dying breath. I wanted to her to remember her as she lived, not how she died. And I was willing to defend you on that when it came time to tell her. But what I don’t understand, Mike, is why the charade? Why give her false hope? Don’t you think that when we finally take that place, she’ll find her body?”

“I burned the body.” Mike stated flatly. Jenny looked at him in horror, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, ashamed of everything that happened. “Lina was the one shred of hope Paige had and it was the only reason why she still listened to me.”

“So, you were trying to keep her in line?”

“No, of course not. But I couldn’t let Paige go through all this suffering just to find Lina like that. I thought… maybe if she believed that Lina was free of that place, maybe that would be better.” Finally, he glanced at her, his one eye still slightly bruised from when he hit himself with a crowbar. “I’m not saying it was the right call…”

“No, you’re right. Because she’s chasing a ghost.” Jenny retorted. “You think Paige isn’t going to get suspicious when she can’t find her?”

Mike sighed. “I’ll figure that out. But in the meantime, I also got figure out how get Sulla and the rest of these assholes in cuffs.”

“Easy, you slap ‘em in cuffs and throw them in a squad car.”

“Sulla killed Sandy Harding.”

Jenny felt her stomach plummet to the ground. She looked at him, almost scared of what exactly he found out. “What?”

“He didn’t know who she was by name…” He went on. “But he told me that sometimes… he gets bored, as he described it. So he would tell the girls that were being sold that some of the johns pay extra for heroin and force them to swallow the balloons. And sometimes he pokes holes in the balloons.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. All of her theories and worst fears about Sandy’s fate crashing down on her. “Mike, you need to shut that place down.”

“But I need Solano.”

“No, you don’t, Mike. You only think you need Solano, but you have Johnny under with him right now. You can get him on drug smuggling alone and nab Sulla for the sex ring.” She leaned out the window slightly. “It may not be exactly what you want, but dammit, Mike. This needs to end. How much more blood needs to be spilled before you’re finally happy?”

He set his jaw defiantly. “You don’t think I want this to end? Do you think I wanted Lina to die? Or lie to Paige, for that matter? But you once told me that I don’t have an easy job. Well, you were right.”

Jenny shook her head slowly and slumped against her seat. “You know… I wanted to believe that Lina was in that trunk the other night. I wanted to believe that somehow I had misheard what had happened, or you somehow managed to save her. But I didn’t know you were lying until I saw how clean your trunk was. And it got me wondering… how many times have you lied to me, and I’ve been way too stupid and naïve to notice it?” Mike hung his head again, knowing that he had lied to her too many times. Not about anything involving his feelings for her, but she was not about to believe him. There was no way he could prove it. Jenny started the car. “You need to stop and ask yourself a couple things, Mike. How many more lies do you need to tell the people who care about you? And is it all going to be worth it in the end?” Jenny sped away from him, a million thoughts running through her head at once.

>>>

“I’m sorry, Shelbs.” Jenny told her friend solemnly. The two of them had just been told by Grant’s sergeant that the Harding case was officially closed. Greg Thompson had pleaded guilty to Sandy Harding’s death and was sentenced to life in prison. Justice had been served, according to the outside world. Bur Shelby and Jenny knew better. In truth, however, Jenny was glad the case was over. She wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to endure it.

“It’s just bullshit!” Shelby slammed a fist on the conference room table. The two of them had slowly been taking down their makeshift headquarters, removing all the maps, photos, and evidence and placing them in evidence boxes. Shelby gestured to the boxes. “All this hard work for nothing.”

“It’s not exactly nothing.” Jenny offered weakly. She hadn’t told Shelby about Sulla’s involvement with Sandy’s death. She was going to, but she had already beaten her to the punch telling her about the closing of the case. No need to pour salt on an already open would. “Sandy’s parents finally have an answer and closure.”

“But it’s not the truth.” Grant shook her head. Jenny tried not to think about the lie she and Mike had more or less agreed to keep from Paige. “How am I supposed to just walk away from this knowing everything we know?”

Not knowing how to answer her, Jenny placed a hand on Grant’s shoulder. “Because we have to. Sandy isn’t the only one who needs someone to fight for her.”

Shelby gave her a sad look. “Does this mean that you’re going to disappear now?”

“What, you think I would just abandon you?” Jenny tried to joke. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. Plus, your wife invited me over for dinner sometime. And if you think I would dream of missing out on Angie’s killer lasagna, then you are crazy.” The two women hugged each other tightly. They were going to miss spending so much time with each other, but they knew that things were going to be different.

“Oh, and by the way,” Shelby broke away from Jenny, trying not to allow herself to cry. “I heard your brother’s girlfriend came by his station recently.”

Jenny knitted her eyebrows together. Charlie was busy working with some crazy bank robber chick to try and rob Sid Markham’s safety deposit boxes. Why would Charlie go visit Paul at work? “You sure it was his girlfriend? And how did you know that?”

Grant shrugged. “The men in this field are dogs. Any piece of ass comes strolling in, word travels fast. And apparently, they had a great amount of chemistry.”

“Well, did they say what she looked like?” She asked, still unsure of why Charlie would risk running into Sid.

“According to the scuttlebutt, she was a thin, white girl with blonde hair.” So not Charlie. “Great ass and killer blue eyes and supposedly a Fed.” Jenny started to wonder if it was Paige who had paid him a visit. Which begged the question, why?

>>>

It was an impulse decision, flying to Mexico. After finding out that Paul and Paige suspected Mike of covering up Lina’s death and the fact that Sid has narrowing in on the compound, Jenny felt like everything was just piling up around her too fast. So, she decided to go down to Mexico to pay Dale and Johnny a visit. It had been a couple weeks of Paige still finding no trace of Lina, Mike still staying at the compound to watch over the girls and Sulla, and Paul trying to worm his way into Sid Markham’s good graces. And now that the Harding case had officially been closed, she figured that a quick vacation would be beneficial. Perhaps some space away from Graceland would allow her to think things through.

Upon arriving at the warehouse where Dale was located, she has his back was turned to her, as he was writing out equations on a chalkboard. Smiling, she knocked on the door. “ _Hola, senor_.” He turned around quickly, surprised to see her. “ _Que pasa_?”

“ _Que pasa_ yourself. What are you doing here?” He couldn’t help but smile upon seeing her. He walked over and gave her a hug.

“Johnny told me you were having trouble getting the airplane stuff, so I thought I would volunteer my genius services.” Jenny smiled wider as she gave her housemate a hug. “Oh, but you are sweaty.” She curled back in disgust. “Do you not have air conditioning in here?”

“Y’all never been to a sauna before?” He joked. “It’s supposed to be cleansing.” Dale was then able to fill her in on all the updates on Solano and the airplanes. Carlito had wanted to restart the drug smuggling, but replacing the buses with cruise ships. Johnny was able to get Carlos, the father and head of the Solano cartel, interested in using planes instead. In theory, the planes would fly over a part of the desert not detected by radar and drop a load of drugs out the back with a parachute. But when Dale and Johnny had brought Carlos out for a trial run, the parachute idea failed, and the test product, flour, fell and smashed to the ground. Now, Dale was trying to figure out how to stop the drugs from crashing violently to the ground by trying to work out the math, while Johnny continued to play “house” with the Solanos. A new problem had also arisen. Because Carlos was spooked by the crashing of the product out of the plane, Carlos was entertaining the cruise ships more and more.

“Is Johnny keeping himself out of trouble with Lucia?” Jenny asked him, as they worked together to try and solve the plane problem.

“As far as I know.” He nodded absentmindedly. But then he turned and faced her, ready to ask the one question he had wanted to ask her since she got there. “Why are you here, Jenn?”

She shrugged. “I wanted to help, remember?”

“You ever heard of a phone? Why did you come all the way out here?” Jenny tried to think of some other excuse that would satisfy him, but with her prolonged silence, Dale was able to make an educated guess. “Does it have anything to do with you and Levi?”

Jenny shook her head. “Can we just get to work please?”

“Jenn…”

“Dale, I would have thought that, of all people, you would be the one to respect someone’s privacy.”

“Yeah, but I can also spot from a mile away when a person is running away from their problems.” He looked directly at her, making her feel two feet tall.

“I’m not running away…” She said quietly.

Jakes sat down in a chair across from her, as she stood by the chalkboard. He gestured to another chair just next to him. “Then, tell me why you’re here. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I know you and you’re going through some stuff.”

Reluctantly, Jenny sat down in the chair next to him with a huff. “Okay, well, the short version of everything is… I’m just not sure what’s real anymore. The Harding case closed because a man wrongfully claimed responsibility for her murder, and that sex ring is still going strong, despite all the efforts me and Paige are trying to push on Mike. And Mike… well, let’s just say I’ve caught him in too many lies.” She wasn’t to start telling all the lies Mike had told her or anyone else in the house.

Dale listened carefully and nodded along. “So you came here…”

“To try and clear my head.” She answered. “Maybe some space will do me some good. Or maybe by helping you and Johnny, I can actually do something productive.”

“Look,” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I know I’m not exactly someone who should be doling out advice...”

“Honestly, Dale, I don’t want advice.” Jenny told him. “I don’t want sympathy or a pity party. None of that. I just want to get to work and remind myself why I do what I do.”

Jakes nodded. “Okay.” They then set to work trying to find the best solution to get drugs to fall from an airplane safely. It seemed sort of backwards, but Jenny kept trying to convince herself that this was good work. They needed to do this in order to bring down the Solano cartel.

A few hours later, Johnny came by. “Jenny?” He was just as confused as Dale was that she was there.

“Yeah, heard you two boneheads needed a genius.” Jenny punched him in the arm when he got close enough. “You’re welcome.”

“What’s the latest on the Solanos?” Jakes asked him, needing to take a break from their equations.

“Dude, it was crazy.” Johnny started telling the story like an excited kid. “So we were all there eating dinner right. And all of a sudden, Carlos gets this weird phone call. I don’t know what it was about, but when he came back, he started beating the shit out of Carlito.”

“He what?” Jenny gasped. “In front of everyone?”

“Yeah, man. It was like Floyd and Mayweather stuff. It was intense. I almost felt bad for Carlito.” Johnny said.

“And he just flipped his lid?” Dale questioned. “No reason?”

“He didn’t even say anything. That’s the crazy part.”

“Does it have anything to do with Carlito and his interest in men?” Jenny asked.

Johnny shook his head. “No, he’s been looking the other way on that for years.”

“Maybe something went wrong with the cruise ships.” Dale suggested.

“I don’t think it really matters. I mean, we got our second chance on this plane stuff right?” He looked over their work that was spread out on the table.

“Well, if we can make this work,” Jakes rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “Which I don’t even know…”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“He means we’re trying to work out the math, Johnny.” Jenny informed him. “We’re trying to balance out the weight.”

“Yeah, we don’t know that yet.” Dale chimed in. “Just like we don’t know why Solano is all of sudden busting skulls.” Johnny nodded. But Dale gestured out the door. “Why are you still here? Go find out, Johnny.”

“Okay. Man.” Johnny mumbled as he turned to leave. As Dale’s phone rang and he answered it, Jenny followed Johnny out the door.

“Hey, what’s the deal with you and Lucia?” She asked him, stopping him in the doorway.

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Jenny, will you cool on that? Alright, we got more important things to worry about.” 

“Yeah, like making sure when all this goes down, you’re not going to get caught in the crossfire.” Jenny insisted. “Have you been keeping your distance or not?”

“We haven’t had sex if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Johnny.” She warned.

He stamped his foot on the ground. “Jenny, would you quit acting like my mom for two seconds? Lucia ain’t like her family. She’s different.”

“And she’s also a subject in a federal investigation, Johnny. We are going to nab these Solanos any day now. And you need to be prepared for what that will mean for both you and Lucia.”

Johnny leaned in close to her and dropped his voice. “So when you and Mike started fooling around when he was looking into Paul…”

“Shut up!” She seethed at him. “It is because of that, I know what I’m talking about. It will be ugly, no matter what.”

“I ain’t Mikey.” He countered.

“No, you’re not. And that’s why I’m telling you to be careful.”

“Johnny, what part of ‘go and find out’ did you not understand?” Dale shouted after him. He had just hung up the phone and noticed that Johnny was still lingering.

“Man, yell at her.” He protested, before exiting quickly.

Jenny rejoined Dale in front of the chalkboard. “Who was on the phone just now?” Jenny asked, as she tried to figure out where they had left off.

“Your bro.” He answered. Paul had called him to let him know that Charlie was pregnant, which was big news for sure. But he was not about to tell Jenny that news. That should come from either Charlie or Paul. “Just checking in on things."

“Did you tell him I was down here?”

“He asked, so I said yes. He says hi, by the way.” Dale folded his arms. “And now for this plane shit.”

“I don’t know, Dale. It’s all just too heavy.” Jenny shook her head and bit her thumbnail in thought.

“Yeah. Too bad we can’t just attach it to a gigantic marshmallow or something…”

Suddenly, Jenny felt like she was struck by lightning. “Oh, my god. Dale, I think I got it.”

>>>

Johnny, Dale, and Jenny found themselves standing out in the middle of the Mexican desert with none other than Carlos Solano himself. Having met Dale and Johnny before, Carlos was wary of the newcomer, so Jenny was introduced as Dale’s “side piece”, despite her initial protestations. Jenny was surprised by how normal Carlos seemed. She had pictured a very scary man, but Carlos seemed like your average middle aged Hispanic man.

“Is there the same amount of product as last time?” Carlos asked Dale, as a plane started to fly over their heads. Everyone held binoculars up their eyes to watch.

“Down to the last ounce.” Dale answered, as the plane got closer. “But we’ve added an extra feature.”

Jenny and the rest of the group watched closely as the plane flew over their heads and drop a large package out of the back of it. The parachute carrying the load immediately deployed as well as the inflatable raft underneath it. Jenny held her breath as it got lower and lower to the ground. It’s coming in too fast, she thought. What if it doesn’t work? But eventually the load made a rough thud on the sand, but no major spills or damage was done. She let her breathe out as Dale and her secretly bumped their fists together.

“It’s clever.” Carlos commented.

“Thank you.” Jenny said, before forgetting that she wasn’t really supposed to talk. The boys had told her that he was a more traditional man, and gender roles were still a big part of Carlos’ culture. Meaning women were mostly to be seen and not heard.

“Inflatable raft with a zip cord.” Dale spoke loudly, hoping to cover up the fact that Jenny had spoke. “When the chute deploys, the raft inflates.”

Carlos seemed to let the Jenny thing go. “Go home and make the necessary arrangements. In one week’s time, we begin the shipments.” He started to retreat with his small bodyguard posse towards the cars.

“Thank you, sir.” Dale threw an arm around Jenny’s waist. “We will be ready.”

Then Johnny spoke up. “Senor Solano, I think I should stay in Mexico until we are up and running.”

Carlos shook his head. “Your business is north now.”

“No, but Dale can handle the drugs.” Johnny pushed. Jenny was staring daggers into the back of Johnny’s head. What was he doing? “I want to stay.”

“Johnny,” Carlos said authoritatively. “I don’t usually give second chances. Go home.” And with that, the head of the cartel and his bodyguards left the three of them in the hot dry sun.

“The hell was that?” Dale asked, still keeping his arm around Jenny’s waist. The cartel men had not yet driven out of sight.

“Yeah, Johnny, what gives?” Jenny felt relieved that she was finally able to speak, and aching to have Dale stop touching her.

Johnny kicked sand before admitting quietly. “I told her I would be back.”

“Goddammit.” Jenny muttered under her breath.

“You told Lucia you would be back?” Dale repeated. “I thought you said it was done.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Jenny finally tore away from Dale and jabbed a finger in Johnny’s chest. “Yes, it is that simple. You do your freakin’ job, dude.”

“How about I do my job and you do yours?” Johnny looked between both Jakes and Jenny. “Just get off my back.” He then started to retreat to his car.

“Do what you want to do, Johnny.” Dale said defeatedly.

Jenny shook her head and faced Jakes. “Do you ever think that we oughtta neuter him?”

The two of them went to their car, as Dale asked her, “So you ready to face the music? Ready to go back home?”

She sighed. “Not really. But I’m eager to get anywhere with central air.”


	20. Sauce

It was later than late, by the time Johnny, Dale, and Jenny made it back to Graceland. They had driven back from Mexico for about 14 hours. And all three of them could barely keep their eyes open.

“I have never wanted sleep more in my life.” Jenny moaned as they stumbled through the front door.

“Hey, what time do you want get to the airstrip tomorrow?” Johnny asked, eager to get back to Mexico, or more specifically, Lucia.

“I don’t know, Johnny. I will figure out when I wake up.” Dale told him.

“No, but I kinda want to get…”

“Guys,” Jenny reached out grabbed both men by the arms, causing all of them to stop in the entryway. “Do you guys smell that?” Jenny asked, letting the scent overtake her.

“Man,” Johnny sniffed his shirt. “I’ve been in the car for like 14 hours.”

“Do you smell that?” Jenny asked again.

Dale inhaled. “The sauce.” Jenny and him excitedly ran into the kitchen, while it took Johnny a minute to understand what they meant.

Charlie was known for her family’s sauce. Every once in a while, she would spend three days slaving over sauce, usually paired with a fantastical story that changed every year. Jenny hadn’t been a part of Sauce Night since when Donny and Lauren lived at Graceland. But because it didn't happen very often, whenever it was sauce night, it was a very big deal. 

“Don’t even think about it.” A sleeping Charlie resting her head on the counter, lifted a large knife at them as they rushed into the kitchen. “I will cut you.”

“We don’t need a murder scene. We know the rules,” Dale assured her. The two rules for Charlie’s sauce were no touching and not being late, because there was no leftovers.

“Yeah, we know and understand the rules completely,” Jenny hovered over the covered pot and inhaled the luscious aroma of Italian cooking.

“I know that you are a sneaky little toad.” Charlie teased them and waved her knife around to have them back up. “No night hungers here.”

“It smells so good though, Mama.” Jenny whined.

“You tell the story yet?” Johnny asked excitedly.

“The sauce is boiling, right?” Charlie nodded to the pot.

“Feel like telling it again?” All three of them leaned in, and gave her their best pleading faces.

Charlie looked between them all, setting down her large knife on the counter. “Fine.”

They cheered, Johnny and Jenny settling in by grabbing stools to sit on. Charlie’s story was the second best part of Sauce Night, the first being the sauce itself.

Dale held up a hand. “Okay, but the thing is, I’ve been in the same clothes for like 40 hours. So let me go change really quick.”

“No, it’s a real quick story.” Johnny argued.

“I need to go change.” Jakes insisted.

“Dale, I’ve been in the same clothes for just as long, but I am willing to put up with it.” Jenny pointed out.

But Jakes was already making his way up the stairs. “Don’t start without me!”

“I won’t.” Charlie called after him.

Jenny and Johnny watched him disappear up the stairs, and then looked to each other knowingly. They then settled back onto their stools and eagerly faced Charlie.

“He’s heard the story so many times.” Johnny shrugged.

“You can start without him.” Jenny added with an eager nod.

Charlie did indeed tell the story of how the sauce came to be, spinning a fantastical web of betrayal, love, and good food. Jenny and Johnny listened to the story like little kids, albeit tired little kids. By the time, Charlie reached the end, Jenny was barely awake.

“Come on, off to bed.” Charlie ordered. “Johnny, go help her.”

“I’m fine.” Jenny yawned, but Johnny was already carrying her bridal style. Normally, she would have protested against being carried in such a way, but she was way too tired to care. “Thanks for the story, Mama.” She told Charlie, as Johnny carried her off.

“Sweet dreams, kiddo.” She called after them.

Johnny carefully carried her up to her room, and gently laid her on her bed. “Thanks, Mikey.” She muttered, as he pulled the covers over her. He wanted to correct her, but she was already asleep. She must have been deliriously tired to mistake him for Mike.

“Good night, Jenny.” He patted her head and slipped out of her room, closing the door behind him.

>>>

Loud knocking interrupted her slumber. Again. “I don’t know who you are, but I am sleeping and armed!” Jenny yelled, turning her back towards the door and snuggling into her bed. The sound of her door opening made her grunt out in frustration. “Look, you may have a death wish…” She turned over and reached for the gun she had stashed in her nightstand. Only to see Mike standing at the door. He looked better than when she last saw him. Before, when he was under with Sulla, he was scruffy and shaggy haired, with dark bags under his eyes. Now he looked clean and rested, back to the normal Mike. She was surprised to find him home, considering the last time she saw him was when he was still under with Sulla. “What do you want?” She asked gruffly.

“I want to know what Paul or Paige told you.” He said simply, closing the door after peeking out into the hallway to make sure no one was around.

“What?” Jenny rubbed her eyes, Mike pulled up her desk chair to sit next to her bed.

“Paul and Paige just screwed me over and I want to know what they told you.” He stated, no trace of joking or teasing anywhere in his body language or tone.

Jenny groaned as she sat up in bed. “Okay, I have had a total of about 3 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours, so forgive my rudeness, but what the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, that’s right. You ran off to Mexico.” Mike nodded, anger rising in his voice. “Well, while you guys were out of the country, Sid found out about the girls and the compound and made a police raid on it.”

She blinked at him, still struggling to keep her eyes open. “You’re serious?”

Mike studied her reactions, to see if they were genuine. “Yeah, and during said raid, five people were shot dead, including our guy, Sulla. Sid would have shot me too, if Paige hadn’t intervened when she did.”

Jenny shook her head as she tried to process all that he was saying. “So… the sex ring is gone?”

“Yeah, the girls managed to make it out safely, but Sulla and the rest of the guys who ran that place are sitting in the morgue.”

“Okay, and again, 3 hours of sleep, so slow on the uptake. Don’t those all sound like good things?” She questioned.

“Well, it would have been if Paul hadn’t known about Sid coming to the compound and gave me a heads up, then maybe I could have made it out of there with Sulla alive.”

“So… you think that Paul conspired against you? Why would he do that?” Jenny was slowly starting to gain consciousness, but he was still sounding pretty paranoid and crazy.

Mike continued. “Because Paige suspects something happened with Lina.” He watched her closely, to see how she reacted.

Jenny shrugged. “Well, I told you that she would start getting suspicious if she didn’t find her.”

“But did you tell her what you know?”

She looked at him, knitting her eyebrows together. “No, I didn’t. I don’t appreciate what you are accusing me of.”

“I just want to know why I have nothing.” He leaned forward. “Every time I get close, it blows up in my face. I could have made it out of there with Sulla at least and nailed his ass to the wall for all the shit he put those girls through."

"Yeah, I'm with you there." Jenny told him. "But again, I don't know what you want from me."

"I just want to make sure those who say they are on my team are, in fact, on my team.”

Jenny nodded slowly. Yeah, he’s lost his mind. “Okay, Mike, here’s the deal. It is way too early for me to have this conversation right now. But I will say that, even though, I am not the biggest fan of yours right now, I didn’t go telling your secrets nor am I conspiring against you. Now, please, for the love of anything that is good in this world, kindly vacate my room so I can catch up on sleep.”

He studied her closely, still trying to determine how much she was involved in. “So you know nothing about what Paige and Paul are up to?”

“No, I don’t.” She insisted.

“How do I know you’re not just saying that?”

“Oh, my god. Mike, I am completely serious. If you do not leave this room, in exactly ten seconds, I will shoot you.”

He stood up and put the chair he was sitting on back where he had found it. “Okay, fine. But I will be coming full throttle against Sid. And I don’t care what it takes to do so.”

“Five, four, three.” Jenny counted aloud, as Mike made a hasty exit. As soon as he was gone and the door was shut, she fell back against her pillows. Maybe I should have stayed in Mexico a little longer…

>>>

It was finally time for the sauce! The buzz of excitement was electric around the room, as everyone set the table and poured drinks. Mike and Dale mixed a spiked lemonade, while Paige and Jenny laid out the plates and silver ware. Johnny and Charlie were in the kitchen, bringing all the food to the table. They were waiting for Paul to get back from his day with Sid, but the smell of the beautiful sauce was unmistakable.

“Mama, can I please sneak a little taste?” Jenny pleaded, as Charlie placed a pot of pasta in the center of the table. “The smell is making my knees weak.”

“Not until everyone gets here.” She insisted.

“Well, he’s only got a few minutes.” Johnny pointed out. “I thought you couldn’t be late.”

“You just said he has a few minutes.” She barked. “Now, go get the breadsticks out of the oven.”

“Who wants drinks?” Dale asked the room, holding up a glass of newly mixed lemonade.

“Depends on how stiff it is,” Paige joked, as he handed her a glass.

“Jenny, I know you want some.” Jakes playfully pointed at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Only if it’s a stiff one.” Mike poured the drink, but let Dale hand her the glass. Mike and Jenny had been keeping their distance from each other again. Despite all the excitement surrounding the sauce, the tension in the air was also very present. Paige and Mike were also avoiding each other. It was going to be an interesting night.

“Hey, Briggs is here.” Mike announced looking over his shoulder. “Now, we can start.”

Jenny turned and saw her brother standing before them, seemingly glaring at Mike. “Oh, thank god, Paulie. I don’t think I can’t wait much longer.” She sighed out relief and took her seat at the table. 

Slowly, everyone settled around the table, tucking napkins in the collar of their shirts and cheering as Johnny and Charlie came out of the kitchen, with the bowl of sauce. In a dramatic fashion, Charlie pulled back the cloth sitting over the bowl, letting the amazing aroma of the sauce surround the table and its patrons.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t be sauce night without a brief toast.” Paul said, taking a hold of his glass. “I know everyone’s hungry, so I’ll keep it short.” He raised his glass up high. “To Graceland. To home.”

“Cheers,” Everyone nodded and clinked their glasses together.

“Now let’s eat.” Charlie announced, taking a large scoop of sauce in the serving spoon. 

“Ladies first.” Jenny produced her plate eagerly towards Charlie.

“That ain’t fair.” Dale protested.

“No whining on sauce night.” Charlie scolded him, as she served Jenny her food. “Keep that up and you’ll be the last to eat.”

Johnny was busy texting on his phone, until Charlie grabbed it from him and threw it over her shoulder. “Hey, that was for work.”

“No phones on sauce night.” She said, as she continued serving food to the rest of the table.

“But it was…”

“I don’t care.” She insisted. “Sauce time.”

“Hey, Johnny,” Mike spoke up. “Was that Lucia or Carlito?”

Jenny shot him a glance and looked over at Johnny. “Um, Carlito.” Johnny replied, making Jenny wonder if he was telling the truth or not. He was still trying to get Lucia out of Mexico, despite being told several times to let her go.

“That must have been crazy.” Mike shook his head, clearly on some sort of mission. “When Sid called and tipped off his little side project.”

“Actually, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.” Johnny shrugged.

“How so?”

“No work talk.” Charlie cut them both off. “It’s sauce night. Come on.”

“Thank you,” Jenny nodded at her. With all the craziness the house had seen in the last few months, they needed to have a moment of peace.

“No, if Mike wants to talk work,” Paige swallowed some food. “Then, let’s talk work.”

“You know what, you’re right, Chuck.” Mike gestured to her with his fork. “We get so wrapped up in work sometimes. So what’s up?” He looked around the table, acting expectantly but knowing full well that no one was going to talk. “Does anybody got anything going on in their lives they want to share?”

A moment of silence fell over the table as Jenny shot him a warning glare and everyone else shoved food into their mouths. “Anybody else…” Dale spoke up. “Having trouble with the washer?”

“It’s the knob.” Paige told him. “You have to turn it all the way to the left until it clicks.”

“Oh, I see.” Dale nodded, hoping that it would alleviate some of the tension in the room. “I’ve been meaning to get that fixed.”

“Yeah, you just have to hear it click.”

“In lieu of that… stimulating conversation,” Mike shrugged. “I guess work it is. Sorry, Chuck.” Jenny told herself to take a deep breath and just enjoy the delicious food. He was trying to get a rise out of the table, and she was not about to ruin sauce night. “Johnny, why was the timing so perfect?”

Johnny had not noticed the rising tension in the air and spoke plainly. “Well, because Briggs had just called me. And I told him that Carlos wasn’t going to buy the plane idea until we found a way to discredit Carlito. So it was just perfect. Right, Briggs?”

Paul, who had been silently stewing in anger, didn’t answer. Instead, he kept his stare down at his plate. “What’s the matter, Briggs?” Mike pressed. “You seem a little out of it.”

“Mike,” Jenny scolded him. "Shut up."

“I haven’t slept.” Paul finally replied, still not looking up from his plate.

Mike leaned over towards Johnny. “Hey, Johnny, when I catch Sid, and ask him who tipped him off to all this, what do you think he’d say?”

“You know,” Briggs slammed a fork down on the table and finally looked at Mike across from him. “I think he would say anything to shave a day off his life sentence. But you know what? I get the impression that you would not be happy unless Sid spends the rest of his days in the ground. Why don’t you share with everyone what you told me last night? I can quote you.”

“That’s enough, Briggs.” Charlie stepped in. But Jenny was still curious what her brother was talking about. “You’re tired. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“And you’re being an asshole.” Jenny told Mike.

“Again?” He questioned sarcastically.

“No one wants to hear it.” Charlie insisted, trying to stop Jenny from attacking Mike.

Paul held up his hands. “Alright. I apologize. I thought this is what you wanted.” He was now talking at Charlie, but his conversation was not specific to her. “You know, for everyone to come together and share stuff and be honest with their shit.”

“You’re not honest with anybody.” She muttered.

“Okay, well, why don’t you show me what that looks like, babe?” He challenged. “I have an idea. What if we start talking about Kelly Badillo?”

Everyone’s ears perked up at the sound of that name. It was also the time when everyone started talking over each other and yelling all their grievances. Mike went back and forth between Paige and Jenny, Paige accusing him of covering up Lina’s death, and Jenny yelling at him for ruining sauce night. Johnny went between arguing with Dale and Jenny, both of them talking about Lucia and Mexico. Charlie and Paul exchanged a few words, before Briggs turned his focus to Mike once again. “Tell me this!” His voice booming over the arguments. “How far are you willing to go to get Sid?”

Mike stood up. “I think the better question, what wouldn’t I do to catch you?”

“Well, bring it then!” Paul also stood up as everyone tried to get them to stop. But no one was quite as effective as Charlie. Who screamed, took a hold of the bowl of sauce and flipped it upside down, letting the sauce splash onto the table. Everyone backed up and reacted to the flying sauce.

“What do you think that? Huh?” She addressed the group, as everyone could only stare at the mess on the table. The beloved sauce that was edible art, now splattered all over the table.

“I’m in love with Lucia.” Johnny admitted.

“Johnny,” Dale and Jenny grunted. Charlie then got a call and took it in the kitchen.

“I’ve been sleeping with her this whole time.” He added.

“Johnny, I swear to God.” Jenny pointed a threatening finger at him.

“You knew?” Mike asked Dale and Jenny.

“Okay, really? That’s what you want to focus on right now?” She retorted.

“The sauce, man.” Dale shook his head and sank back into his seat. Slowly, one by one, everyone returned to their chairs, now no one daring to make a sound. Almost as if it was a wake for the sauce itself, except the anger everyone still felt from earlier was still very present.

Charlie came back in the room. “That was Amber, the chick who’s set up to rob Sid’s bank with me. The job’s off.” She slowly made her way back to her chair.

“What the hell is her problem?” Mike wore his frustration on his sleeve. “Why doesn’t she want to go through with it?”

“There’s a film shooting right across the street the night of the heist.” She replied solemnly, all the fight leaked out of her. “John Woodsman VII or something.”

“What is that, a porno?” Dale asked.

“Dale.” Jenny shook her head. Now was clearly not a time to start joking.

“No, he’s a lumberjack that comes back from the dead,” Johnny explained. “And slaughters slutty teenagers.”

“You’re like the Wikipedia of nonsense.” Dale shook his head at him.

“Okay, can we talk solutions?” Mike intervened before the two of them could go at it again. “Every time we get close to Sid, it blows up in our face. But not this time. Okay?”

Paige sighed, staring at the ceiling. “Is there a possibility that we could do it in a day or two?”

“No, they change the security code every night.” Charlie replied. “Amber spent weeks on digital recon finding a match.”

“Well, what about Jenn?” She pointed to her as she spoke. “Could you get the codes?”

Jenny was caught by surprise. “I mean, it depends on how sophisticated their system is. Not to mention, banks usually have a crap ton of security measures.”

“So you’re saying you can’t do it?”

“No, obviously I can do it, but it will probably take me a couple days after I’ve had a chance to play with the system.”

“And the airdrops start in three days.” Dale reminded the room.

“So, we have to do the heist and we have to do it now.” Mike thought aloud, scratching at his chin.

“Then, do it during the day.” Briggs suggested. Everyone in the room took turns giving him confused and alerted looks. “Doors are open, so no need for security codes.”

“Yeah, but then you have to worry about civilians and security.” Charlie pointed out. “We would need a whole team for that.”

Paul and Mike exchanged looks from across the way. “We could be that team.” Mike nodded slowly.

“We?” Jenny questioned.

“Okay, now you are stepping into illegal territory, Mikey.” Charlie shook her head at him.

“Yeah, but if we’re the ones watching the hostages,” Briggs mentioned. “Then we can keep them safe. We could even tell them we’re feds.”

Charlie looked at him perplexed. “Are you going to get FBI approval for that?”

“Well, as long as we get our perp, they’ll let us do whatever we want. Right, Mike?”

Mike started to consider it more. “Okay, but this is still nuts, right?” Jenny felt compelled to point out. “I mean, we’re talking about a bank robbery.”

Johnny shrugged. “It might be kinda fun.”

“I don’t think Amber will go for it.” Charlie shook her head skeptically. “I think you probably got a better shot of her going to see ‘Big Johnson 19’ or whatever.”

“You gotta make her go for it.” Mike told her. “That’s your job.”

“You want us to play bank robbers?” Paige chuckled darkly and gestured to the table. “We can’t even get through a dinner.”

“Alright, we are professionals.” Mike addressed the group, as Jenny tried not to roll her eyes. He seemed to love to throw the term “professionals” around a lot when it was convenient for him. “We should be able to put aside our personal differences and get to work, right?”

“So we’re doing this then?” Jenny asked the group.

“I don’t see we have any other choice.” Dale sighed deeply.

“Alright, then let’s go.” Mike ordered.


	21. Heist

After working furiously to set up aliases for the entire house, the housemates of Graceland found themselves walking into a warehouse to meet Amber, the woman who was going to help them rob Sid Markham’s bank. Jenny still felt weird about doing this, but there was no talking anyone out of it.

As they entered the large room of the warehouse, a blonde woman stood before them. “Who we got?” Jenny assumed she was Amber, judging from Charlie’s general description of her.

“We got Paul, Mike, John, Paige, and Jenny.” Charlie made the introductions as the rest of the group silently nodded to the new girl. “These guys will be covering the perimeter and taking care of hostages. You already know Dale, the wheelman.”

“Nice to see you again.” Dale waved at her.

“Nice to see you too,” Amber stood a little straighter as she addressed the group. “But from now on, you don’t have names.” She gestured to a table with plastic animal masks. “You’re animals.”

Johnny let out a chuckle, earning a warning slap from Jenny. “You’re serious?” Johnny asked Amber.

“We don’t want the hostages knowing anything about us.” Amber replied. She picked up a goat mask and held it out for Charlie. “So the goat, her glock, and myself, the monkey, will head straight back to the vault. It’ll take exactly 4 minutes and 13 seconds to clear said vault. We’ll need someone to transport the cash to the van while we pack it.”

“I’ll do it.” Paul raised his head.

“No,” Mike spoke up shooting Paul a suspicious look. “I’ll do it.”

Amber chuckled. “I like the enthusiasm, boys, but I don’t want the guy who wants to do it be in charge of handling the cash. Hope you understand. The innocent sheep will carry the cash.” She picked up the sheep mask and handed it to Paige. She then looked over Mike closer. “You look like you should work at a bank, not rob one.”

“That’s how they never see me coming.” He shrugged confidently, while Jenny tried to hide her eye roll. He would have probably insisted cocky attitude was for his cover, but she would guess there was more to it than that.

“The rabbit watches the door.” Amber handed him a rabbit mask and then held out the fox to Dale. “The sly fox, in the getaway van. And the pig and the dog herd the hostages into the back office, keeps them under control.” She offered Jenny the dog mask and the pig mask to Johnny.

He shook his head. “Why I gotta be the pig?”

“Because it’s a natural fit.” Dale muttered not too quietly, earning a muffled snicker from Jenny.

But Johnny still put up a fight. Jenny ripped the pig mask from Amber’s hands and slammed it into his chest aggressively.

"Boy, shut up, and put the pig mask on." She ordered.

Amber gave Jenny a satisfied smirk. “I like you, puppy dog. You got bark.”

Jenny smiled proudly and gave a humble shrug of her shoulder. Amber came to the tiger mask, and addressing Paul, the last one to be assigned a job. “Mr. Tiger cuts the security video and helps with the hostages. One last thing…” She picked up a gun and pointed it directly at Paul’s head. “If you try and screw me, I’ll mow your ass to the ground.”

Everyone, who had received a gun with their mask, cocked and pointed their guns at Amber, Jenny ready to be the first one to fire if Paul got hurt. But luckily, before any bullets could fire, Charlie reached out and lowered Amber’s gun, standing in front of Paul and getting closer to Amber. “Is that necessary?” She asked, in an almost seductive way. If Jenny hadn’t been so focused on protecting Paul, she might have let a look of surprise on her face.

Amber smiled and glanced behind Charlie at Briggs. “So you’re the mystery man. I was wondering if she would bring you.” She took a couple steps back and motioned for everyone that the danger was over. Slowly, they lowered their guns, Jenny being one of the last to do so. “But you’re guns were loaded and none of you hesitated. I like that” Amber nodded approvingly. “Tomorrow, 8 am sharp. I want you to know this floor plan.” She held up the blueprints of the bank they were planning on robbing. “Better than your mother’s face. We’ll do run-throughs for two hours. But for now, go home and get a good night’s sleep.”

>>>

After cleaning up the mess that was sauce night, everyone went to bed, to get ready for the next day’s bank robbery. None of the tension had cleared from dinner. No one talked to each other. They all went about cleaning talking as little as possible. Except when Johnny was reminded that it was his turn to do the dishes on the chore wheel. He put up a little bit of a fight before reluctantly starting to run the faucet. Slowly, everyone retreated upstairs to try and get some rest. But Paul pulled Jenny aside to speak with her privately.

“Dude, what’s up?” Jenny asked, as Paul roughly took her be the arm and pulled her into the living room.

Paul watched intently, as Mike disappeared upstairs and he made sure that Johnny was busy running the sink. But still he spoke quietly. “I want to know what Mike’s told you.” He whispered to her, the severity in his voice piercing her like a dagger. Someone had been calling him and playing the recording of him killing Juan Badillo, and Paul had a very strong suspicion that it was Mike.

She also couldn’t help but think of the parallel between the conversation she had with Mike that was eerily similar to this one. “What?”

“What has Mike told you? What’s his plan?” Paul glanced over his shoulder again, making sure that he didn’t slip back down.

Jenny regarded her brother in confusion. “What plan? Are you talking about the heist?”

“So he hasn’t said anything about what he wants from me or what his angle is?”

“No, but ironically, he asked me the same exact thing about you.” Jenny crossed her arms. “What is it between you two anyway? Is this still about what happened with Sulla?”

Briggs wanted to feel assured that his sister still hadn’t heard the tape. He was sure that if she had heard it, she would have confronted him immediately, screaming in his face. But the fact that she hadn’t brought it up yet could suggest that Mike hadn’t played it for her. So he really is just trying to play me, he thought. “It might be more than that.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Oh, dear lord. Will you two just stop acting like catty mean girls and figure this out? And stop thinking that I’m conspiring against either of you and putting me in the middle.”

“Are you still with Mike?” He asked, trying to see where loyalty lied.

“Oh, my god.” Jenny grunted. “No, I’m not, okay? And I refuse to take part in whatever turf war this is between you two. Be adults and get your house in order.” Jenny then slipped up the stairs, leaving Paul to sit and worry more about what Mike have up his sleeve.

Before Jenny could disappear into her room, she spotted Mike standing in his doorway, looking like he was waiting for her. “Were you just talking with Paul?” He asked, trying to be as casual as possible.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Jesus Christ, I am going to tell you the same thing I told him. I don’t want any part of this, okay? You and Paul need to stop sneaking around behind each other’s back, stop trying to involve me for some reason, and deal with this like big boys. Now if you excuse me, I am going to go and try and sleep before I have to take part in a bank robbery so we can catch a dirty cop, because that is my life now.” She slammed her door shut to emphasize how done she was with the conversation. Hopefully, she thought. This won’t effect the hit tomorrow. But knowing both Paul and Mike, she knew that it would.

>>>

This was it. They were pulling up to the bank, dressed in hideous coveralls and wearing their animals mask, cocking their weapons. Any other morning at Graceland was filled with banter, sharing breakfast, and swapping stories and advice about their cases. But that morning had been a particularly quiet morning. They all ate their food and sip their coffee silently, some still angry about the way sauce night ended up, others nervous about the heist they were about to take part of. Mike and Paul were like the same side of two magnets, avoiding each other fully, and the tension was almost visible.

Now, they were all jumping out of the van and walking into the bank, already filled with the hustle and bustle of customers and tellers. No one suspected anything. Jenny was glad that she wore a mask, so it could hide the terror on her face, not only from the civilians, but her housemates as well.

They opened the doors to the bank and everyone started yelling at everyone to get down and waving their glocks around wildly. Jenny and Paul turned their attention towards the armed security guards and demanded them to give their guns up. Everyone else was doing their job. Amber and Charlie went immediately to the safe, while Mike lowered the shade in all the outside windows. Paige and Johnny helped heard everyone in the back office. Jenny forced an authoritative tone, hoping no one would notice her gun shaking in her hands. As everyone was being ushered into the back office, Jenny caught a frightened teller hiding under the counter. It took her a split second to remind herself that she had a job to do.

“Hands up, let’s go.” She barked at the woman, who crawled out from underneath the counter and stood up, holding up her hands. Jenny could see tears forming in her eyes as she pushed her towards the back room. “Save your tears for something that matters.” She snapped. Paige and Johnny ushered people in, while Briggs went to go cut the security tape.

Before disappearing in the back completely, Jenny looked around the lobby one last time to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone. Mike, his face covered in the rabbit mask, gave her a nod. Though, she wasn’t sure if that was meant to be encouraging or a warning. Still, Jenny then retreated to the back office and closed the door behind her.

Johnny took off his mask and flashed his badge to the frightened group of bank goers in the room. “We’re federal agents. Keep quiet and calm and you will be safe. Nod your heads so I know you understand me.” Everyone slowly started to nod their heads, but the fear was still very present on their faces, but now was mixed with some confusion. _Can’t say I blame you,_ Jenny thought.

The sound of a series of booms from the safe echoed throughout the small bank. Jenny lifted her mask, seeing the look of alarm on the civilians faces. “It’s alright, relax.” She tried to assure them.

Paul had returned from his job and was eyeing the crowd nervously. Until his gaze fell on one of the disarmed security guards. “What are you looking at, man?” He challenged.

The man sputtered nervously. “Nothing.”

“Paul,” Jenny warned him. The man was clearly not trying to start or aggrevate them, Paul was just being paranoid.

“Paige, keep an eye on this one.” Paul pointed to the guard.

“No, Jenny can do it. I gotta go get the money.” Paige took a step towards the door.

“He’s on some hero shit.” Paul insisted. “He almost gunned me down in the lobby.”

“No, he didn’t.” Jenny shook her head. She was there right next to him. “Calm down, Paul.”

“Stick to the plan.” Johnny grunted at him.

“Sometimes, plans change.” Briggs nodded. “Watch him.” He then stopped Paige from going out the door, and instead disappeared down the hall.

“What’s with him?” Paige asked Jenny.

“I am not his keeper.” Jenny shrugged. Some part of her wanted to follow close behind her brother and make sure he didn’t try anything funny. But they had already deviated from the plan with Paul leaving the hostages. She didn’t want to risk the heist any further. She then noticed that nearly every eye in the room was on her. “What are y’all looking at?” She spat. “Nothing to see here.”

A few seconds passed, another sound echoed over the small bank. A loud bang. “Was that a gunshot?” Paige asked no one.

Jenny felt her stomach drop. Shooting someone was not part of the plan. “I’m going to go check it out. You guys stay here.” Before Johnny or Paige could stop her, Jenny was already running. She rushed to the lobby, where she saw Paul lowering his gun, Mike looking directly at him, his rabbit mask ripped off his head. Jenny looked between the two men. “What the hell happened?”

Mike ran out the front door, but Paul stayed still. “Paul?” Jenny grabbed her brother’s arm and seemed to shake him loose from a trance. “What happened? Where’s Mike going?”

“Amber was going to shoot him.” He replied, a distant look in his eye. He was about to let Amber shoot Mike. He had made her believe that Mike was going to double cross her and take off with the money. But right before Amber could get a shot off, he had received another phone call that played Juan Badillo’s recording. A phone was not in Mike’s hand. Mike never had the tape. “So I got her in the arm and she ran.”

Jenny could hear the distant sound of sirens approaching. “So Mike’s going after her?”

“Yeah.” Paul dropped his gun to the ground, looking at his sister’s hands. “Jenny, do you have your phone?”

She looked at him in confusion. “No, I left it with Dale. Why?”

So she didn’t have the recording either. So who did? “I was just going to try and call it in.” He replied casually.

“Do you not hear those sirens?” Jenny questioned, ripping the mask off her face entirely, so she could study her brother’s face. He looked haunted, like he had just witnessed something horrible. But he had shot people before while on a job. And he said that he had only got her arm. Amber wasn’t laying in the lobby dead. So why did he look so disturbed? “Paul, what’s going on with you?”

Briggs tried to shove the guilt of what he almost did to Mike way down. He looked over his shoulder towards the safe. “I just can’t believe we got Sid.”

>>>

Jenny was sitting in her room, reading over emails she had been ignoring for a while, seeing if there were any new cases being offered to her that she would be interested in. Now that the Harding case was over, and the Sid case was nearing the end, she was ready for a change of pace. Maybe she could find one that was out of state, that would take her away from Graceland.

Mike knocked on her door, holding a beer bottle in his hand. He had just been out by the firepit with Dale and Johnny, who had showed less than enthusiasm that they had finally got Sid’s money taken away from him. “Hey,” He lingered in the doorway, not sure if she would let him stay very long. “What you doing?”

“Searching for my next job.” She replied coldly, not looking up at him.

“You that eager to get away from me?” He asked.

“Mike,” She gave him an unpleasant smile. “I think we both know that I am running out of ways to be useful to you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? You just nabbed Sid’s nest egg and practically waved it in his face, and Sulla’s gone, which leaves you with only Solano and Sid. And with Sid losing out on his retirement fund, he’s going to fall on his own sword pretty quickly. I fail to see where I come into play in any of that.”

Mike glanced towards the ground and dared himself to enter her room, taking a seat on her bed across from her. “I think I owe you an apology.”

Jenny couldn’t help but bellow at that. “You think?” She lowered her computer screen and leaned back in her chair. “Well, you’ll have to be super specific, but go ahead.”

“I shouldn’t have acted like a dick to you.” He said plainly. “I guess, since you said you needed your space, I haven’t been handling it very well. And then I tried to pull you in the middle of me and your brother… It was unfair of me to do that to you. So, I’m sorry.”

She was impressed. This was the most human she’d seen him behave in weeks. “Your apology will be taken under consideration.” She stated, trying to keep herself from giving in.

“I’ll take what I can get.” Mike gave her a friendly smile, and took a sip from his beer. “And um… have you… given any consideration as to…” He gestured between them.

Jenny raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you looking for a _celebration_ , Agent Warren?”

He shook his head. “No, no, of course not. It’s just that… you know, where we left things off…”

“And all that’s happened since.” She pointed out. “Or have you already forgotten about Lina?”

Mike sighed. “I’m working on a letter to send to her family.” He spoke quietly in case someone was listening in.

“Yeah, that’s going to make things better.” She muttered.

“Well, what do you want from me, Jenny?” He challenged. “I’m trying to make things right again, but I can’t seem to make you happy.”

“Who cares about that?”

“I do.” The words lingered in the air for a moment. Jenny locked onto his damn puppy eyes. “I’ve never been good at saying it, but I do care about you, Jenn. And I think about you all the time. And… I miss you. I know you live just down the hall, but… I miss being around you. You don’t have to believe me, but I never lied when it comes to how I feel about you. And that doesn’t excuse all things I’ve said and done. But... can we… can we try and make this work again?”

Jenny was left with nothing but choices. She could scream in his face and tell him to go to hell. She could weep like a lovesick puppy and fall into his arms, forgiving all of his sins. She could shrug and say “sure”. Truthfully, she missed him, too. She twiddled her thumbs and stared down at them. “Are you still willing to do whatever it takes to nab Sid or Solano?”

“Absolutely.” He answered firmly.

She turned her gaze up to the ceiling. “Then, we need to keep things the way they are.”

He couldn’t hide the disappointment and frustration he felt. “Why? What is it about this case that…”

“Exactly, Mike.” Jenny looked at him again. “What is it about this case that is causing you to get so… tunnel-visioned? While you are still on this case, and rubbing your victories in Sid’s face, you are painting a target on your back. And I… I can’t give my blessing to that. I can’t watch you dig your own grave.”

Mike nodded slowly. He was still disappointed, but he could understand where she was coming from. Mike was not about to slow down on Sid now, not after how close he has gotten. Slowly, he got up from her bed and walked to the door. He stopped in the doorway though. “When I get Sid, and I will get Sid,” He told her over his shoulder. “I hope that will be good enough for you.”

“It’s never been about Sid, Mike.” She shook her head at him.


	22. Calm

Jenny entered Graceland with bags of food in hand. Johnny, Dale, and her were working on marking counterfeit bills that they were going to give to Solano, for when Mike made the bust. They had to mark each bill with tiny purple dots only visible by blue light. And it was $20 million. They had been working on them most of the morning, so Jenny volunteered to grab lunch.

“Delivery from Hector’s Tacos.” Jenny announced, earning a cheer from the two men still working on the counterfeit bills in the living room.

“Please tell me you got that extra guac.” Johnny jumped excitedly, stretching his back from being hunched over the coffee table for too long.

“Yes, Johnny,” She rolled her eyes and handed him his bag of food. “I got your precious guac. And Dale, Hector threw in some extra peppers on yours, just the way you like it.”

They settled in on the couch and started to munch on their favorite Mexican food. Jenny nodded towards the stack of bills in front of them. “How much did you do while I was gone?”

“I did a couple stacks.” Jakes reported. “Johnny was busy trying to recruit the rest of the house to help out.”

“Hey, I was still working on these, man.” He protested.

"No, you were doing what you always do and ran your gums at whoever walked past," Jakes argued, as he bit into his burrito. 

"Dude, shut up."

“So, I see you weren’t successful in your recruitment.” Jenny muttered, still seeing all of the unmarked bills.

“Nah, everyone’s just got a stick up their ass about something.” Johnny whined. “Mike and Charlie are out trying to nab Amber, Paige is still angry at Mike…”

Jenny swallowed guiltily. Paige had asked her several times if she knew anything about Lina, but she kept lying to her. Unable to tell her the truth. “She is?”

“Yeah. Do you think she’s right? Do you think your boy could have burned a body?”

She thought back to when she had confronted him on that fact. Paige might have understood if he had actually told her the truth that night. Maybe things could have been different. “He’s not my boy, Johnny.”

Dale and Johnny ‘aww’ed as Jenny rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you two kids just kiss and make up already?” Dale teased.

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s how it works, right Dale?” She snapped at him. “Anyway, can we please change the subject? When’s the big bust going to go down?”

Dale shrugged. “According to your bro, Sid is planning on taking a field trip down to Tecate in a couple days, to pay old man Solano a visit. By then, Johnny and I will have given this money to him by then, and Mike will go into the Solano place right when Sid and Solano are in the same location. Then bam! Cuffs, Miranda rights, roll credits.”

“Sounds simple enough,” She muttered, knowing full well that there was bound to be complications. With all the twists and turns they had seen with this case, she doubted that things would end with a tidy and neat bow.

“Hey, did you happen to get a tracker set up on Sid’s car yet?” Johnny asked her.

“Do you really need to ask that Johnny?” She had bribed one of Sid’s mechanics to sneak one on his engine when he had brought it into the shop recently. She was hiding in a broom closet while he did it so she would be certain it worked and not tip off Sid. “Of course I did.”

“Well, all that leaves is getting Johnny on the inside of the house again.” Dale nudged him in the side. “And we will be toasting the end of all this by the weekend.”

>>>

Jenny had her overnight bag packed and ready to go. Dale and Johnny were already down in Tecate, awaiting word from Mike. She was going to go down there and set up surveillance at the border, before the big bust went down in the morning.

She descended the stairs to find Paul sitting on the couch. He was just sitting in an empty room, the TV was not on, which was very odd. Was he just sitting there in silence? “Hey, Paulie. You all ready for your little vacay with Sid?” She rested her bag down on the floor and sat next to him on the couch.

“Yeah, as ready as I’ll every be, I guess.” He replied, not looking at her. He had a lot on his mind.

“Paul,” She nudged his shoulder. “What is with you lately? You’ve been lost in that big brain of yours for days now.”

Paul looked to his sister, not wanting to keep anything else from her. “Charlie’s pregnant.”

Jenny felt a bolt of lightning strike her. “She’s what?”

“She’s pregnant.” He repeated. “Saw the test myself.”

“Oh, my god.” She blinked a couple of times, feeling an odd combination of happiness and worry. "And it's yours?" Her brother gave her a look. "i'm sorry. I'm... sorry. It's just... this is a lot." 

“Yeah, I know.” Paul nodded. “But… I think I might have messed things up.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’s kinda cutting me out of the deal. We had words and she told me to leave her alone.” What he didn’t want to tell her was that it was Charlie who had found and played the Juan Badillo tape for him. She had confronted him after the bank heist and it hadn’t ended well. “Jenn, I want to see my kid grow up. I want to be there for them.”

Jenny sighed, not really sure how to help him. “Then, you gotta fix this, Paul.”

“I just don’t know how.” He admitted quietly, hanging his head.

“I don’t have the magic words to solve this for you,” She reached over and rubbed his arm soothingly. "Normally, I would say grovel until she caves, but this is Charlie."

"Yeah, don't I know it." Paul shook his head as he thought about all the mistakes that he had made with Charlie. With Juan. With Jenny. He could have spent his time regretting his decisions, but he was one who always tried to focus on the present. All the mistakes he had made had brought him to where he was at now. A man who was about to be a father, but only after he helps take down an entire cartel.

"How would it even work?" Jenny wondered aloud. When Paul looked over at her in confusion, she went to explain what she meant. "I mean, Graceland isn't exactly a kid-friendly environment." 

He allowed himself to chuckle at the thought. "Well, the kid's sure gonna have a lot of crazy aunts and uncles."

Jenny laughed harder, leaning her head on his shoulder. A rare moment of affection and contentment between siblings. "As long as the title of craziest aunt falls to me, that's all I care about." She giggled.

"I don't think you'll ever have to doubt that." Paul placed a kiss on top his sister's forehead.

She lifted her head up to smile at him. “I don't know what it is that happened between you and Charlie, but... you gotta use that big ol' brain of yours to fix it somehow. And I swear to God, Paul, if you mess up my little niece or nephew, I will kill you.” Paul let out a giggle.

But their moment was cut short by the sound of the front door opening. They both looked and saw a bloodied and bruised Mike walking through the door. One of the sleeves of his suit jacket was ripped at the shoulder and hung limply at his wrists, and blood trickled from his mouth. “Jesus, Mike.” Jenny leapt up to her feet and ran to him. “What the hell happened?”

“Sid.” He replied gruffly, wincing when she placed a hand on his bruised chin. “He complained to Agent Clark, or rather, talked to the U.S. attorney’s office to bring me up on charges, and we had a bit of a disagreement.”

“Yeah, I would say so.” Paul remarked from the couch.

“This is exactly what I was talking about.” Jenny murmured to him before disappearing into the kitchen to grab an ice pack for him.

“Weren’t you just at HQ?” Paul asked him.

“Yeah.”

“So you laid a beating on Sid in front of Clark and a whole building of federal agents.”

“I was so stupid.” Mike grunted at Paul. “I should have known that Sid would have been fought back against me.”

“No, shit, Sherlock.” Jenny agreed as she returned with the ice pack.

“No, there’s nothing wrong with being passionate, Mike.” Paul offered.

“Except when you beat someone’s ass in a federal building.” Jenny pointed out.

“Sometimes, a man has to take action.” Briggs shrugged, earning an eye roll from his sister. Men were ridiculous sometimes.

“Yeah, well now, Clark wants to babysit my whole op.” Mike said spitefully. “Like I’m some child.”

Jenny huffed out a grunt, silently telling him that she agreed with that. Paul gestured to the man’s appearance. “And you ripped your suit, too.”

As Mike took it off and threw it one of the chairs, Jenny shook her head and glanced at the time on her phone. “Well, as much as I would love to stay and scold you for the lovely display of manhood, I have to get down to Mexico and make sure all our surveillance equipment is up and running for the bust in the morning. Do you think you can hold off on beating anyone else up while I’m gone?”

“Bye, Jenny.” Paul urged her, sensing that Mike was not in the mood.

“Bye, boys. Or as they say down south, _hasta la vista_.” Jenny made her quick exit, before Mike or Paul had anything else left to say. 

“It’s rough, isn’t it?” Briggs asked knowingly, as soon as she was gone. “Realizing the Bureau’s turned against you?”

Mike felt a guilt feeling rotting in the pit of his stomach, remembering all about when Paul was being accused of murder. “I don’t know. Maybe Jenny’s right. Maybe they should indict me.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.” Paul stood up finally. “This whole thing works on a very basic arithmetic. It’s sometimes hard to see how it works until you got the bad guy in cuffs. You weigh the damage that you did versus the damage he would have. As long as you’re in the black, it’s all good. And you’re in the black.”

Mike wasn’t so sure he agreed with him. “What if I can’t catch him?” He asked instead. “What if I’ve done what I’ve done and there’s no victory to tip the scale?”

Paul shrugged. “Well, maybe that’s where atonement comes in.”

He chuckled darkly. “Do you think that same rhetoric would apply to your sister?”

“That is an excellent question, my friend.” Briggs slapped him on the shoulder. “But that is a classic apples and oranges debate.”

“So which one is she, the apple or the orange?”

Now it his turn to chuckle. “I’m thinking she’s a pear.”

>>>

“Why me?” Mike asked Charlie. She had just played for him the Juan Badillo tape. His brain was running a million miles a minute. Thinking back to all the mess of Paul’s disappearance, Jenny freaking out, and the house nearly burning because of that tape. But it was an accident. Juan was just dead set against Paul, and Paul was… well, Paul. Now, Charlie had confessed that she was pregnant with Briggs’ kid, so she couldn’t turn him in. She was placing the responsibility on him.

“Because you’re not sentimental, Mike.” She told him.

A part of him was slightly offended by that. “Yes, I am.”

Charlie gave him a look. “Where’s Jenny?” She asked him, knowing full well that she had made a valid point. “I’m moving out after Sid. I can’t turn him in, Mike. He’s the father of my child, I can’t…” Her voice cracked with tears, despite her trying so hard to keep it under control.

“Okay, okay.” He comforted her. “When I take Sid tomorrow… I have to cuff Briggs too. I could just keep him.”

Charlie nodded and got up to leave. “Whatever you do with that tape, Mike. Be careful.”

Mike sat back in his chair and stared at the tape. Should he turn it in to the Bureau? Should he confront Briggs? Should he share it with Jenny? No, he couldn’t do any of that. Turning the tape into the Bureau would mean a repeat of all the shit that went down all those months before. Jenny would never forgive him for that. Nor would she forgive Paul. If he confronted Briggs with this find, what would that mean for him and Briggs? More than anything at that moment, he wanted to talk to Jenny. Not necessarily to tell her about the tape. But she had always made him feel safe or helped him think clearly. Well, most of the time anyway. But she didn’t want to talk to him. No, he had to get Sid first. Then, maybe she would listen.

For the time being he tucked into his bag he was bringing for the bust on Sid. Maybe inspiration would hit him after everything was over. One thing was certain, at the moment, he wished he had an easier job. 

>>>

Sid Markham did not consider himself a bad guy in the slightest. Had he done some not so great things? Yes. Had he made nice with some not so good people? That was practically his whole job. But he was a fighter. He had worked hard to create the life he had now. He wasn’t about to let some D.C. jock take that away from him. At least without a fight.

He had placed a tracker in Mike Warren’s suit pocket when they had their little tussle the day before. And now he was standing in the living room of Graceland. Sid was impressed by the huge beach house. He didn’t think that agents made enough to own a house as nice as this. He saw Mike’s suit jacket from earlier laying on a chair in the living room. Moving to it in order to take the tracker out of the pocket, his eyes fell on a framed picture sitting on an end table right next to the chair.

There were 7 people in that picture. Sid recognized Mike’s face immediately, even though he was genuinely smiling in the picture. The only smile Sid had ever seen on him was a smug one. Next to him was a girl he also recognized. It was that girl that had confronted him about bribing Greg Thompson to take the fall for the killing of that one girl. Jennifer something. Her arms were around Mike’s neck and she looked like she was laughing at something behind the camera. Were those two together? He thought.

But it kept getting better. Of the seven people in that picture, he knew four faces. Warren’s, the girl hanging on him. And another girl who he knew as a fed. Paul West had seduced her in order to get info out of her about the girls in Sylmar. And speaking of which, Paul West was also staring back at him in the photo. Paul was working with Warren. Sid had been set up.

“Well, this will not go unpunished, Warren.” Sid Markham said to an empty house.


	23. Rescue

“Sid’s about 15 out.” Jenny announced to the small tent of agents. She had been working through most of the night and into the morning, triple checking all the equipment and making sure nothing was going to fail. If this truly was supposed to be the end, she wanted to be sure it didn’t fail due to equipment failure. Her eyes were drooping, but she tried to power through it.

“I got eyes on him.” Mike looked out with binoculars as Jenny continued to track the moving vehicle from her computer screen. She was also trying to get in touch with the small surveillance team set up at the Solano estate watching the perimeter. Trying to see if any unwanted movement happened before the bust went down.

Agent Clark went to go talk with Mike, who was standing just outside the tent. He had been getting on everyone’s nerves, including Jenny’s. He had been mansplaining to her how surveillance worked in the Bureau, and she was ready to feed him to the coyotes. Jenny spoke into the walkie. “Y’all set up at the border?”

“Copy that.” One of the agents came through. “Locked and loaded.”

“We got eyes on Sid now. He should be getting to you shortly.” She informed him. “Hopefully, you boys won’t have too bad of sunburn.”

“Are we all set on the border?” Agent Clark reentered the tent and addressed Jenny before she could scold Dale over the walkie.

“Yes, sir.” Jenny nodded.

Clark took the walkie from her and spoke into it. “This is Agent Clark, we all set on the border?” Jenny bit down on her tongue hard, trying to remind herself that assaulting a federal agent was a crime and it could cost her badge. And she was not about to be as reckless as Mike with Sid.

Speaking of which. “How we looking?” Mike asked her, as Clark took the walkie away from them.

“Like I want to tear Clark a new one.” She muttered angrily. “But with Sid, just fine.” Jenny lifted her head and couldn’t help but notice his bruised complexion. “You’re still sporting a nice shiner.”

He sighed. “Yeah, healthy reminder of why I’m doing all of this.”

“Healthy? That an interesting word choice.” She snapped at him.

“We’re almost done with this, Jenn.” He tried to remind her.

“Yeah, that’s what worries me.”

"Do you want this to end?"

"Of course, I do." She raised her gaze to him. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want that. But I'm... just worried about what exactly 'the end' means."

It wasn’t long before everyone’s phones started ringing like crazy. Jenny’s stomach flipped over like a pancake, dreading what that meant. Mike answered his phone as a notification popped up on Jenny’s screen. There was a bomb threat reported back at HQ, a package with Clark’s name on it. Clark started to bark out instructions, telling everyone to pack up and move out. Only a couple seconds later did Jenny get another notification. Agent Charlie DeMarco was missing. She had been going to meet up with Amber, but didn't end up checking in with her cover team. They had found her car smashed and busted up, with no Charlie.

Jenny felt the whole world shift around her. But it only lasted a couple minutes. Jenny quickly packed up her stuff. She was going to go find Charlie whether she had to do it alone or not. Once everything was packed up, she looked and Mike talking on the phone. As she got closer to him, she heard him say, “Briggs, you just stay there and stay on task.”

Jenny stomped over to him. “Is that Paul?” She demanded.

He looked over at her, surprised she was there. “No, I mean, Briggs…”

“Give that to me.” She yanked the phone out of his hands aggressively, no longer playing the nice card. “Paul? You heard about Charlie?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.” He replied. She could hear the determination in his voice. “I’m taking the SUV and I’m headed north.”

“Great, swing by and pick me up. I’m coming, too.” She spoke into the phone.

“No, you are not.” Both Mike and Paul told her at the same time.

“Like hell, I am not. I am going to find Charlie, with or without your help.” She told both of them. "Ain't no way that I'm going to sit around and let other people find her. And neither of you can stop me."

“Okay, fine.” Her brother conceded. “I’ll call you when I’m close.”

“Great, see you soon.” Jenny handed Mike his phone back. “You coming or not?”

“Sid is in Tecate right now, Jenn.” He argued. “You are not leaving.”

“Just try and stop me, Mike.” She yelled at him, but lowered her voice to ask, “Do you know she’s pregnant?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“Then, why aren’t you coming with me?”

“Because we have Sid. He’s right there. All we have to do is…”

“Sid?!” Jenny exclaimed, attracting the attention of the remaining agents still packing up. “Is that really all you care about anymore, Mike?” He couldn’t answer. There was just too much on the line. Jenny shook her head in angry disappointment. “You know what, I’m done waiting for you to make the right decision. Go to Tecate yourself, with zero backup mind you, and go get your perp. If you want to get yourself killed, be my guest. But I am going to go rescue someone that I care about.” She stormed away from him, as he made the difficult decision. He had to go to Tecate. He just had to get Sid.

>>>

Paul and Jenny pulled up into the empty lot where they were meeting Billy, one of the Paul’s “friends”. Apparently, he had been the one to introduce Charlie and Amber. Charlie went missing before she could meet up with Amber, meaning there was a good chance Amber was the one responsible for her disappearance. Billy was waiting next to his car, no look of alarm over his face.

“I gotta tell you, Paul…” Billy was saying as the two of them hopped out of the car. “Hey, who’s this little lady?” He nodded towards Jenny.

Briggs grabbed Billy roughly by his shirt and slammed against his SUV. “Where is she?” He demanded as Billy blinked rapidly trying to process what had happened.

“Where’s who?”

“Where’s Amber, you scumbag?” Jenny got up close to him, her hazel eyes wild with anger.

“I don’t know.” Billy insisted.

“Bullshit, Billy.” Briggs shook him again.

“I don’t know! She left me.”

“I swear to God, man.” He threatened with a low and dangerous voice. “Charlie is missing and the last person to talk to her was Amber. Now, do you think that’s just a coincidence? Tell me where Amber is!”

Billy sighed in defeat. “There’s this money launderer. British guy. If she’s with him, Charlie’s in trouble.”

“You got an address, genius?” Jenny asked him. “Or a name?”

“Germaine. I know where he sets up camp. It’s this old mall.”

“Well, I suggest you write down the address and pronto!” Briggs shoved him against the car again for added measure.

Jenny and Briggs were able to leave Billy intact, minus a few bruises and speed off in pursuit of Charlie. Jenny was able to pull the address up on GPS and directed Paul to the location.

“Jenny, if…” Paul bit down on his lip. “If anything happens to her…”

“Don’t think like that.” Jenny demanded. “You and I both know Charlie is more than capable of handling herself.”

“Yeah. But what about my kid?” The question went unanswered. Instead it served as their motivation. Paul slammed on the gas, and Jenny tried to send any prayer or positivity Charlie’s way. They weaved their way in and out of traffic until they came across a decrepit part of town. Not unlike the industrial park in Sylmar where the sex ring was located. Jenny tried to ignore the parallels and focused on finding Charlie.

Finally, they pulled up to an old, rather large building. It looked like Billy had described it. An old strip mall of sorts. Broken window displays and doors hanging on their hinges made it look almost like it had survived an apocalypse.

“Okay, wait here.” Paul told his sister, as he reached for his gun.

“Yeah, right.” Jenny scoffed at him. “I’ve got your 6. Let’s go get our girl.”

Jenny followed close behind Briggs into the building, both holding out their guns and eyes scanning for any sign of movement. They strained their ears to try and locate where Charlie might be. But they could hear nothing yet. Paul nodded for her to follow him down a large hallway, past old departments stores, mannequins still and frozen staring at them. For a while, it was eerily quiet.

Soon, they heard shouting and footsteps. They ducked into the shadows, just as a henchmen with a rather large gun walked into view, checking the perimeter. Jenny aimed her gun, and squeezed the trigger without hesitation. Paul’s gun was fixed on another guy. Both shots rang out over the empty building. They could hear shouts down the hallway to go check it out. Briggs motioned for them to move again, inching closer and closer to what sounded like an open courtyard, probably a former food court, judging by all the chairs and tables scattered around. Another guy came around the corner, this time Paul got to him first. “Charlie?” He called out.

“Charlie!” Jenny hollered. “Where are you?”

“Paul, Jenny!” They heard Charlie’s voice in the distance, making them quicken their steps. “I’m upstairs!”

They were able to make it the empty food court. Paul went out ahead of Jenny a couple of feet. “Charlie?”

As Jenny rounded the corner, she saw movement above them. Amber was standing on the second floor and pointing a gun right at her brother. “Paul, down!” She shouted, as she aimed for Amber. Briggs ducked out of the way as Amber and Jenny fired a couple round at each other. Jenny finally got her in the leg, making her collapse on the ground.

“Good shot, sis.” Paul told her as they climbed up a broken-down escalator. When they were about halfway up the escalator, they saw a man jump from the second floor down to the first floor where they had just come from. They both stopped their ascent and pointed their guns at him. The sound of bone cracking and a strangled cry of pain echoed as the man hit the ground. But the man still was able to hobble away, favoring his undoubtedly broken leg.

“Do I go after him?” Jenny asked her brother.

They both heard a grunt on the second floor that answered them. “Charlie!” They called, finally reaching the landing. They saw Charlie laying on the ground, battered and bruised. Only a couple feet away laid Amber, bleeding from her leg. Jenny saw her reaching for the gun just out of reach, so she kicked away and pointed her gun in her face. “Don’t you move, you blonde bitch!”

Paul ran over to try and revive the unconscious Charlie. “Chuck, chuck? You okay?” Slowly, Charlie opened her eyes and saw Paul kneeling over her. “Hi.” He smiled with happy tears in his eyes.

“Hi,” She groaned weakly as she regained consciousness. "You're in Mexico."

"No, I came for you." He told her, trying not audibly sob at how happy he was that she was alive. 

“You okay, Mama?” Jenny called over her shoulder, not taking her eyes or gun off Amber.

“She’s fine.” Paul answered for her. “Put your arms around my neck.” He instructed Charlie and helped her to her feet. He lead her towards Jenny, who ran and threw her arms around her.

“Thanks for saving me, kiddo.” Charlie sobbed into her shoulder. Normally, she would have fought hard against the tears. But after being beaten senseless for hours, she had begun to wonder if anyone would even come for her.

Jenny was finally able to come to terms with what had just happened. She had roughed up a guy for information and shot and killed at least 3 people. All without batting an eye or hesitating. Jenny was slightly amazed at that. “That’s what you do for family.”

>>>

Charlie’s baby was alright. Jenny and Paul went with her to the hospital to make sure that her beatings and torture hadn’t done too much damage. Thankfully, Amber hadn’t allowed the guy to hit Charlie’s stomach, so the baby was fine. They had to give statements to the officers who arrived on the scene, but they insisted on doing it at the hospital, neither one wanting to leave Charlie.

Soon, the police officers left them alone and the doctor forcefully kicked both Jenny and Paul out so Charlie could get some rest. “Thank you, Jenny.” Paul told her when they were alone in the hallway. “I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”

“Well, you would have been shot for starters,” Jenny joked lightly.

He let himself smile, feeling a weight lifting from his shoulders. “Yeah. I guess I owe you one.”

“One? I seem to recall you owe me plenty, Paulie.”

“Hey, that time you gave me the answers to the algebra test doesn’t count.” Briggs jabbed her.

“Yes, it does.” She argued. “And even besides that, I have saved your bacon in a myriad of ways.” They slowly started to walk out into the waiting room, a content silence falling over them. “You’re going to be a great dad, you know.” Jenny told him.

Briggs sighed out an insecure breath. “How do you know?”

“Because you’ve been kickass brother to me.” She reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “And, you just mowed down a bunch of baddies to protect your kid. I think that means you’ll be fine.”

Paul threw his arm around his sister’s shoulder. “That kid is going to have one kickass Auntie Jenny, too.” He placed a kiss on top of her head as she beamed brightly. She wondered how having a baby running around Graceland would work. Undercover work and drug busts weren’t exactly a great place to raise a little one. Would that mean that Charlie and Paul would move out?

“Ah, there you are.” Agent Clark stopped her from thinking too much further on it. He walked up to the two of them authoritatively. Jenny gripped her brother’s hand in an effort to keep herself cool. “Agent DeMarco is alright, I trust?”

“Yes, sir.” Paul nodded. “But we already talked to the arresting officers…”

“No, that’s not why I’m here.” He shook his head. “Have either of you heard from Agent Warren?”

Jenny tried to ignore the worrying stab in her stomach. “Not since I left him at the border. Why?”

“The idiot went to Tecate alone.” Clark reported grimly. “I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. And I had to go deal with a bomb threat at federal plaza, which turned out to be a hoax. It was just reported to me, though, that Sid Markham and his team were at the Solano house when shots were fired.”

“Were there any casualties?” Briggs asked, as Jenny gripped his hand harder.

“Plenty.” Clark remarked. “Including most of Markham’s team and Carlos Solano himself.”

Jenny and Paul were taken aback by that news. The head of the Solano cartel was dead. All the hard work they had put in for the man’s capture only lead to his death. And Paul, who had been under with Sid’s crew, felt a sense of survivor’s guilt. Just a couple hours ago, he was sitting in the car with the team, all alive and well. If he had stayed… “You said most of Markham’s team?” Paul questioned.

“All but one actually. Sid himself managed to escape.”

“Escape?” Jenny repeated.

Clark sighed. “This is where Agent Warren comes in. According to Markham’s statement, Mike was the one who opened fire on everyone. From our preliminary investigation, we know that some shots were fired from an agent's gun.” Now, Jenny understood why she had an uneasy feeling. It couldn’t have been Mike. On one hand, Mike was determined as hell to end this case. But on the other hand, Sid wasn’t exactly a reliable source. “And now, we can’t seem to locate Warren’s whereabouts.”

“You can’t seriously think Mike did any of that?” Briggs shook his head. “Sid’s been gunning for him since the beginning.”

“Well, until Warren comes forward with his own version of what happened, it’s the only lead we got.” Agent Clark looked between the two of them. “So again I ask, do either of you know where Agent Warren is?”

“Well, if you can’t tell,” Jenny gestured to the hospital around them. “We’ve been a little busy.”

“Has he reached out to you at all?” Clark pushed. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“No, I don’t.” Jenny snapped at him. “But isn’t it kind of embarrassing when you can’t locate one of your own?”

Clark set his jaw at her. “When you do hear from him, you call me first.” He then left them to stew on the news.

“Jesus Christ, well, that little happy moment didn’t last very long.” Jenny muttered.

“Yeah, Sid’s a real piece of work, trying to tarnish Mike’s reputation like that.” Briggs shook his head.

Jenny studied her brother. “You don’t think he did it?”

“You do?” He couldn’t try to hide his astonishment if he tried.

“Look, you and I both know how crazy he’s been about Sid. And we both kinda left him high and dry to go look for Charlie.”

“Mike’s been passionate, but he’s still Mike, Jenny. And I’m sorry, I can’t see him doing that. I just can’t. And I can’t believe you would trust Sid’s word over Mike’s.”

“I don’t trust Sid at all, okay,” She assured him.

“Look, Jenny, I know that you two aren’t exactly getting along anymore.” He rested her hands on her shoulders. “But I think you know deep down that Mike would never stoop so low. He has worked way too hard to let loose now… are you trying to vilify him?”

“No.” She scoffed defensively.

“You are.” He nodded slowly. “You’re looking for an excuse to not to go running back to him.”

“You’re making me sound like a love-sick puppy.” Jenny brushed his hands off her shoulders.

The doctor called Paul over, but before he left his sister, he looked her in the eye and said, “I know he loves you, too.”

Jenny couldn’t believe her ears. Love? That was so cheesy and cliché. She didn’t love him. He was egomaniac and a habitual liar. How could she love someone like that? As if on cue, her phone buzzed, indicating that it had received a text message. When she looked at it, she didn’t recognize the number. But she recognized the text message.

_I’m sorry I was an asshole._


	24. Thud

Within 30 minutes of receiving the mysterious text message, Jenny had traced the location of the phone. Luckily for her, it was stationary, so it was easier for her to find. This was the part of technology she could do in her sleep. Paul took Charlie home to rest and Jenny sent herself on the mission to find the cell phone.

She was able to trace it to an old parking garage in a less populated part of town. _Mike, this better be you._ Jenny pulled up to the garage and took out her phone. The cell that had sent her the text was just a few feet away from where she parked. A quick glance around and she saw a door labeled ‘employees only’. Her feet carried her quick to the door, hoping that it wasn’t locked or required a code. It wasn’t.

Pushing the door open, she stumbled into what looked like a boiler room, rusty machines lined the perimeter. There were no windows and only a singular faint fluorescent lightbulb hung above. In the low light, however, she could see Mike, sitting on the ground and leaning against a machine, looking up at her with his damn puppy eyes. “Oh, my god, Mike.” She ran over to him and knelt down beside him. Even in the dim light, she could tell he looked pale. “What the hell happened? What’s wrong?”

“Hi, Jenny, nice to see you too.” He muttered, trying to readjust his seated position, but feeling a stabbing pain in his side.

“Are you hurt?” She asked, noticing him wincing.

He lifted a part of his shirt to reveal the gunshot wound in his side. Jenny could make out the blood still trickling out from the hole. “Just like old times, huh?” He joked, remembering when he had been stabbed in the side, the scar from that only inches from his bullet wound ironically.

"You feel feverish," Jenny told him, placing a hand on his forehead. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“No, I can’t.” Mike shook his head. “Bureau thinks I shot everyone at the Solano house. Not to mention, Sid might find me and finish the job.”

“Yeah, what happened there?” Jenny wanted to hear his side of the story to compare to what Sid had been telling the Bureau.

Mike leaned his head against the machine and looked up to the ceiling. “You were right. I should have never gone in there. When I pulled up to the house, I heard gunshots immediately. When I went to go investigate, everyone was dead. All of Sid’s guys, Solano’s guys. Carlos Solano… all gone. One of the survivors took a shot at me, and then I saw Sid laying on the ground. I asked what had happened, and he… he had my gun, Jenny. I don’t know how he got it, but he had my gun. He shot himself with my gun.” He slammed a fist down on the cold concrete beneath him, barely registering the pain.

Jenny didn’t know how exactly she knew, but he was telling the truth. Sid would definitely be the one to shoot himself and blame Mike. “Why did you run? Why not stay and defend yourself?”

“He had my gun.” He repeated. “What could I say? Sid was filing charges against me, so it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch for Clark to believe him over me.”

“Yeah, especially since you beat him up the other day.” She nodded in understanding. It was strange sense of déjà vu. A while back, it was her brother that was on the run from the law. Now it was Mike. What a mess they have found themselves in. “Good God, Mike.”

“I’m sorry for everything, Jenny.” He grabbed a hold of her arm. “I was just trying to end it for us, for the house, for Lina…” His blue eyes were becoming wetter as he spoke. “I’ve been nothing but an asshole, and I know I don’t deserve anything from you. But I just need you to know that I am sorry.” He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Maybe things could have been different.”

There was a finality to his voice that Jenny did not like. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you dare say goodbye to me.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it just be easier?”

“Since when have you ever done the easy thing?” She stared back into his eyes intently. “I am not letting you quit on me, Mike.”

Mike looked at her hopefully. “I thought you didn’t care about me.”

“Shut up, you dumbass.” She grabbed a hold of his face and brought her lips to his. Instinctively, he reached a hand to cradle her head against his. Their lips rejoiced at their reunion, trying to convey how much they missed each other. It just felt right and natural. Maybe Paul hadn’t been so wrong before…

Soon, the pain in his side caused Mike to break away from her, a yelp escaping from him as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Please, let me take you to the hospital.” She pleaded.

“What about Sid?”

“I’m in the goddamn FBI, Mike. I can get you a fake ID and a solid alibi in a matter of hours.” He smiled at that. “I could even have armed guardsmen standing outside your room 24/7.”

“Well, I think that’s a bit much.” He muttered.

“Okay, then how about an army of ninjas?” Jenny jokingly offered. “Please, Mike. If we don’t get you to a hospital… well, I refuse to have you die in a boiler room.”

He cupped her face affectionately. “Alright. But I’m staying here until you get everything set up. I don’t want to risk running into Sid out there.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’ll go get everything ready for you. But do you think you’ll be okay in here?”

He showed her his gun that he had stashed behind him. “Only one way in or out of this place, and no one’s been in here for years. I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, but if you get in trouble, you call me.” She gripped his chin and had him look her in the eye, so he would know that she was serious.

“You’re kinda bossy, you know.” He teased.

She couldn’t help but smile. “And you are really whiney.” She placed one more fervent kiss on his lips, before tearing herself away. “Stay put, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted as she made her way to the door.

Jenny lingered in the door for a moment and looked back at him. Words were on the tip of her tongue, but her mouth refused to move. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to admit what she didn’t want to admit aloud. Besides, he was practically bleeding out on the floor. He had more important things to worry about. So instead, she gave him a reassuring nod and closed the door.

>>>

Jenny had Mike’s new identity within a couple of hours as promised. Mike Richards. Working with a brand new fervor, she was determined to make it iron clad, even undetectable to the FBI. This took a lot of skill. Luckily, Jenny was very good at her job.

She gathered up the papers and rose from her desk to go back to Mike and help him to the hospital. On her way out the door, however, she heard something breaking down the hall from her. It was coming from Johnny’s room. Unable to stop herself, she moved quickly to his door. “Johnny? What’s going on in there? You alright?”

“Go away!” The sound of something being thrown and breaking against the door made her jump back. Johnny was not normally one to get angry. This was typical behavior of Dale when he got angry, but not Johnny.

Paige poked her head out her bedroom door to see what the ruckus was. “What’s eating him?”

“I don’t know.” Jenny knocked again on the door. “Johnny, can you please stop throwing things and let me in?”

“What part of ‘go away’ do you not understand?” He shouted. Another loud bang made both the women jump.

“Jesus Christ, this is the last thing that I need right now.” Jenny muttered to herself. Then she turned back to Paige. “Okay, I’m going try and talk some sense into this one, maybe talk him off the ledge, but I need you to go give this to Mike.” She handed the fake IDs to her.

“You found him?”

“Yeah, he’s stashed in some boiler room. I’ll text you the address. He’s been shot, so you need to make sure he goes to the hospital.”

Paige looked down at the IDs hesitantly. “I don’t think I should.”

“What?” The sound of another thing breaking in Johnny’s room reminded Jenny of why she was asking Paige this favor. “Look, can’t you see that a lot is happening right now? I know you hate the guy, but I need…”

“Lina wrote a letter to her family.” Paige told her. Jenny swallowed guilt as she continued. “Her sister tried to come here to find her. The letter came from Scottsdale and was only sent a couple of weeks ago.”

“Well, there you go then.” Jenny still couldn’t tell Paige the truth about Lina. Mike had apparently gone through great lengths to make sure it was believable. And if Paige was starting to believe Lina was alive, she was not about to take that away from her.

“I don’t know if I can face him, Jenn.” She went on to say. “I’ve accused him of… And I was so wrong…”

“Maybe that’s why you need to go.” Jenny offered. “Please, Paige.” Paige stared at the fake IDs as they would jump out and bit her. But, maybe Jenny had a point. They had to make nice sometime. Reluctantly, she nodded. “Thank you. Tell him I will meet him at the hospital.” She gestured to Johnny’s door. “After I put out some fires.”

Paige set off to find Mike, while Jenny dared to open the door to Johnny’s now quiet room. When she poked her head in, she saw Johnny slouched over on the ground, surrounded by broken pieces of plastic and glass. Upon further examination, she saw that he was slouched over the robot Zelanski had gifted him with. One of the arms had either fallen or broken off and Johnny cradled the pieces in his hands like they were porcelain. “I didn’t mean to.” Johnny murmured, as Jenny carefully stepped over the scattered debris.

“Well, maybe next time, try yoga or something.” Jenny quipped.

“Shut up!” He threw the robot in her direction, having it land just centimeters from her feet.

Jenny looked down at it and picked it up. Remembering Zelanski and his weird obsession with robots. Carefully, Jenny walked over and sat down next to Johnny on the floor, holding the robot in her hands. “Remember when Z told us all the names he had for these guys?” She asked quietly. “And they were all… really stupid names, too. I can’t remember this one’s name…”

“Socrates.” The quiet reply came from Johnny. She looked over and saw his head still hunched over.

“God, that sucks.” Jenny smirked. “Why not name it like R2D2 or something robotic?” When he still didn’t answer, she pressed further. “Zelanski was never good at naming things, but… he sure was a good listener.” She rubbed a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “What’s going on Johnny?”

He raised his head slightly, but remained quiet for a minute longer. “Carlito knows everything.” He finally stated. “He caught Jakes switching out the counterfeit cash and knows I’m a fed. He knows about me and Lucia. And… now, he’s got her.”

She took a moment to let the information sink in. Carlito Solano had always been a dangerous target, so something like this was bound to happen at some point. But she didn’t really expect it to happen with Johnny being so close to either Carlito or Lucia. “Shit,” was the only thing that she could think of to say. 

“I should have listened to you.” He said quietly. “I should have never gotten involved with Carlito or Lucia. I should have just stayed the hell away from either of them.”

“This would have happened with or without you, Johnny.”

“Yeah, but then maybe I wouldn’t feel like it’s my fault.”

“It’s not.” She gripped his arm tightly, even though he still refused to look at her. “None of this is your fault, Johnny. It’s all Carlito. He’s the one who has Lucia. He made that choice on his own.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t help.” He muttered.

“Stop it. Stop doing that. You are not to blame and I’m not just saying that.” She studied him some more, before finally realizing, “You really do love her, don’t you?”

At long last, Johnny glanced over at her. “I wish I didn’t right now.”

Jenny rested her head on his shoulder, trying offer some comfort. “You don’t get to choose who you love.” She replied, thinking about Mike. “It just sort of happens.”

Johnny leaned back against the side of his bed and rested his head on top of hers. “Did you read that on the back of a cereal box or something?”

She chuckled. “Crochet pillow, actually.” They both shared a light-hearted laugh. “You’re going to get her back.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.” She lifted her head to look at him and poked his nose playfully. “And you are annoying until you get your way.”

He chuckled and leaned his head back. “Thanks, J.B.”

“Anytime, J.T.”

>>>

“Mike is in trouble and needs our help.” Paul addressed the housemates. Johnny, Dale, and Charlie sat on the couch, while Paul and Jenny were explaining what had happened to them. Jenny had been able to console Johnny enough to get him downstairs, but he was still rather down. Paul had been trying to rally the troops by the time the two of them had joined the group. Paige was sitting by the window staring out of it. Ever since she had returned from being Mike, she had barely spoken two words. No matter how many times Jenny had tried to grab her attention, Paige would not look at her.

The three members on the couch all looked down at the ground in hesitation at Paul's rallying cry. “Guys, come on.” Jenny pushed impatiently. “It’s Mike.”

“I think that’s the hesitation, Jenn.” Dale explained.

"Okay, no one has been more annoyed at him than me," Jenny explained. "He's been an asshole since he got back and I'm not going to deny that." 

"This would be the part where you put in a 'but'." Johnny rolled his eyes. 

After flashing him a warning, she continued. " _But_ it's not Graceland without all of us."

"She's right." Charlie spoke up. "I'm with you, kiddo."

"Well, that makes an even divide." Jenny glanced over at Paige again, who was still sitting with her back turned to the group.

“Listen guys.” Briggs added. “The reason why we are in this house together is because there are certain missions we cannot be expected to handle alone. Alone we become untethered, alone we lose control. Now, somewhere along the way, we lost sight of our purpose of what lends sanctity to these walls. We don’t guard Graceland, guys. And Graceland doesn’t guard us. We guard each other. And when systems are failing, that’s when we need each other the most.”

Johnny slowly nodded in agreement. Dale raised a fist in the air. “Hear, hear.”

Paige, on the other hand, stood up and flew up the stairs. “Paige?” Jenny called after her. But she didn’t slow down. Something in Jenny told her to follow.

Little did she know that Paul was also two steps behind her. “Paige, hold up.”

“Paige, stop. What’s going on?” Jenny asked as they reached the second floor.

Finally, Paige turned around on her heels, tears flying from her eyes. “What’s going on? How about I can’t sit down there and listen to that sanctimonious team-building bullshit.”

“We are a team.” Jenny argued. “That’s not bullshit.”

But Paige kept spewing at Paul in anger. “You talk about guarding each other? We’re the ones who are supposed to be guarding the people out there, not just…” She hung her head, and glanced over at Jenny. “He did it. He did it, Jenny. He burned her.” Jenny swallowed thickly. So that was why she had been so quiet. Mike had finally admitted the truth about what happened with Lina. Guilt still sank to the pit of her stomach, thinking about all the times she hadn't come clean to Paige about what she knew.

“Paige, what happened with Mike?” Briggs took a step towards her. ‘What did you do?”

The guilty look on Paige’s face was undeniable. “Paige.” Jenny felt the guilt in her stomach slowly turn to dread.

“Sid.” She admitted. “I give him the name.”

There’s a moment when you are on a roller coaster, as the cars go up the first hill, there’s a moment of stillness. As the cars reach the highest point, there’s a spot where gravity takes a moment to kick in. Then in the next moment, you plunge towards the earth at break-neck speeds. Jenny felt that exact sensation standing perfectly still. “You what?” It came out as gasp, as Jenny could no longer feel air in her lungs.

Briggs stood there for a moment, also feeling a sinking feeling in his stomach. If Sid knew where Mike was, it was only a matter of time before he confronted him. And this time, only one of them was going to walk away. He, then, turned to descend the stairs swiftly. “How dare….” Jenny started to say but knew one thing was for certain. She wasn’t about to let Paul go alone. Flashing Paige one more crazed look, she quickly followed behind her brother, feeling the air rush past her, like she was on a roller coaster.

They hopped in Paul’s truck and sped off. Paul wasn’t about to try and tell Jenny to stay. She was not about to stay behind, even if he handcuffed her to the foundation of the house. Jenny quickly told him which hospital Mike was at and tried to call ahead. Panic and worry filled her like a glass of water. With every passing second, it grew more and more.

“Yes, hello,” Jenny spoke very quickly and passionately to the lady who picked up the phone. “This is Agent Jennifer Briggs with the FBI. I need you to place Mike Richards under protective custody. I don’t want anyone going into that room until I get there, do you understand me?”

“Um, ma’am,” The clerk stammered. “I’m afraid that is highly against protocol.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what is protocol!” She screamed into the phone. “This is a matter of life and death. Do not allow a single person into that room.”

“Look, ma’am, I can refer you to…”

“Get me in touch with whoever is in charge and make this happen.” Jenny snapped. She was the placed on hold, as much as she wanted to smash the phone against the concrete they were flying over. “How far away are we?”

“About 10 minutes out.” Paul told her.

“Make it 5.” She ordered, as he slammed on the gas pedal. “I can’t believe they put me on freakin’ hold right now.”

“It’s going to be fine.” He tried to say, even though there was no conviction in his voice.

“Don’t you dare try to lie to me, Paul!” She demanded.

He reached over and placed a hand on her knee. “I’m going to try my best, okay?”

“But what if we’re too late?” She asked, her voice breaking. There were too many things that she hadn’t told him. Too many things she still needed to do. _I can’t lose him._

Paul went way over the speed limit the whole rest of the way, Jenny not getting anywhere with the staff, despite how many threats and verbal abuses she hurled at whoever was on the other end of the line. But at long last, Paul pulled the car up to the hospital. They both hopped out quickly, Paul leaving the keys in the ignition. Someone wanted to steal his car, they could go ahead. 

Upon entering the lobby, Jenny slammed a fist on the welcome desk. "Mike Richards. Where is he?" She demanded, no amount of friendliness could be found in her tone or face. 

A frightened nurse looked at her in confusion and shock. "Um, I-" 

Paul came up behind Jenny, holding up his badge. "Mike Richards. What room?"

After the nurse got over her initial shock, she was able to tell them that he was on the third floor. The second she heard the room number, Jenny took off down the hall. _I’m coming, Mike._ Jenny didn’t even bother with the elevator. Paul was just one step behind her as they climbed the stairs with a fury. Jenny’s lungs were on fire, her brain on full alert. Hoping and praying that she was freaking out about nothing. That she was going to find him in the hospital room, awake and unharmed. Laughing that she had panicked so much and trying not to smile when she started to chew him out for scaring her like that. Then flashing her a million-dollar smile and giving her an apologetic look, with his damn puppy eyes, before she let herself give in. _Hang on, Mike, I’m coming for you._

When they made it to the third floor, they stopped and searched the room numbers quickly. But a sound got both of their attention. The high pitch sound of someone flatlining echoed down the long hallway. Jenny felt like throwing up but felt her feet rush towards the sound _. Please, please, please._

Paul and Jenny burst through the door to find where the source of the sound was coming from. They stood in absolute horror, looking at a motionless Mike laying in a hospital bed. He was hooked up to a breathalyzer and an oxygen tube, his skin still as pale as when she had last saw him. His eyes were open, but there was no light behind them. They stared blankly at a spot on the wall ahead of him, unmoving, just like the rest of him. The squeal of the heart monitor giving the single, steady beep pierced her like a spear. Mike Warren was dead.

“Mike!” Jenny heard herself scream, as she rushed to him, turning his head to face her. “Mike, Mike, please look at me.” She pleaded through sobs. His damn puppy eyes looked in her direction, but only because his head was moving under her touch. They were not alive. “No, please. No!” She sobbed into his hospital gown, all the words she had meant to say stinging her like spikes. Regrets and memories flooded her mind, when they first met, goofing off on the beach, their first kiss, all the morning waking up next to him, the secret glances they would sneak at each other. It was all over. It was all gone.

Nurses came flooding into the room, ready to revive him. Paul who quickly wiped away a tear from his cheek, reached out to pull his sister away from him.

“No! Leave me alone!” Jenny screamed at the nurses and fought against Briggs. But she was too weak from her tears to put up a real fight. He pulled her close to his chest as she continued to sob and scream mournfully. Briggs couldn't stop looking at the lifeless shell that laid in the hospital bed. The poor kid was so full of life and energy. He knew that upon their first meeting. Yeah, things with the two of them hadn't always been smooth and friendly. But Briggs almost thought of Mike as a younger brother. He had so much more to offer the world.

“We need you two to leave.” A nurse told them, as the rest of them set to work on trying to revive him.

“No, please, I want to stay!” Jenny flailed her limbs out to try and stop her brother from pulling her into the hallway. "I can't leave him!"

"Jenny, let them work." He tried to say, another tear escaping from his eye.

Nurses and doctors continued to pool around Mike, ordering each other about to get the paddles ready.

Jenny kept trying to fight Paul and strain her head to keep her eyes on Mike, but with her brother's strength and insistence, and the amount of bodies in the room, he soon disappeared from her sight. “No, wait! Mike, Mike!” The door closed with a thud.


End file.
